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PLANTATION LIFE 



BEFOR£ 



EMANCIPATION. 



^ t.>A ^ BY 






R. Q. MALLARD, D. D., 

New Orleans, La. 



( WAH SI ^v 



RICHMOND, VA. : / V 

Whittet & Shepperson, iooi Main Street, 
1892. 



Copyright 

BY 

R. Q. Mallard, 
1892. 



Pbinted by 

ITTKT k RhEPPEHBOH, 

Richmond, Va. 



To 
THE MEMOEY OF 

Cltarles Colcock ^onest 3B* 3i*t 

Who, whetheb 
HIS WoEK AS A Mis- 
sionary TO THE Blacks, 
OB THE Wider Influence of 
HIS Example, and Writings in 
their beh.\lr, be considered, is 
Justly Entitled to the Name of the 
Apostle op the Negro Slaves ; and of his 
MANY Fellow Workers in the Gospel Ministry 
upon the same field, only less Conspicuous, Self- 
denying AND Useful ; and of the host of Masters and 
Mistresses, whose Kindness to the Bodies, and efforts 
for the Salvation of the Souls of the Subject Race 
Providentially placed under their rule and 

CARE, will be read OUT, ^VITH THEIR NAMES, 

IN THE Day WHEN "the Books shall be 

opened," and " god shall bring 

every work into judgment, 

with every secret thing, 

whether it be good or 

whether it be evil, " 

This Book is Reverently and Lovingly Dedicated. 



^ TOord to tlic Header. 



THE chapters to follow were originally given to 
tbe public in tlie form of a series of letters, 
under the same title, contributed to the columns of 
The Soiithicestern Presbyterian, the official organ 
for over twenty years of the Synod of ^Mississippi, 
embracing the greater paii of the State of the same 
name, and the whole of Louisiana. They were sug- 
gested by an article copied into that journal from The 
N'eio Y^ork Evangelist, and written by a lady, a na- 
tive of South Carolina, manied and resident at the 
North, in defence of Southern Christian slaveholders 
from the aspersions of a secretary of the Northern 
Presbyterian Freedmen's Board. 

In this graceful and vigorous vindication of her 
fellow-countiymen, quotation was made from an old 
faded copy of a printed report, made by Rev. Charles 
Colcock Jones, to the Liberty County Georgia " As- 
sociation for the Rehgious Instruction of the Colored 
People." Having in the providence of God been 
brought into intimate relations with this eminent 



vi A Word to the Eeader. 

servant of God, and personal acquaintance Tvitli bis 
"work, I found that by marriage I had come into 
possession of a bound volume of pamphlets, contain- 
ing not only the report cited, but the entire series, 
thirteen in number, as well as ail his many writings 
upon the same subject. This discovery of accessi- 
ble and ample material for a fuller vindication of 
the memory of our ancestors, as well as my relations 
to the writer, as they constituted peculiar qualifica- 
tions for, so they seemed to constitute a providential 
call to the work. 

These letters, thus prepared, met with general 
favor among the readers of our journal, and at the 
suggestion of white and black, and by the advice of 
prominent ministers of more than one denomination, 
they are now published in book form and seek a 
larger audience. 

The purpose of the author has been to portray a 
ci^^lization now obsolete, to picture the relations of 
mutual attachment and kindness which in the main 
bound together master and servant, and to give this 
and f utiu'e generations some correct idea of the noble 
work done by Southern masters and mistresses of 
all denominations for the salvation of the slave. 



A "Word to the Reader. vii 

If the reader shall have half the pleasure in perus- 
ing that the author has had in writing these letters ; 
if they shall in an}' degree contribute to the restora- 
tion of the mutual relations of kindness and confi- 
dence characterizing the old regime, and sorely- 
strained, not so much by emancipation, as by the un- 
happy events immediately succeeding it ; if through 
the blessing of him " who hath made of one blood all 
nations of men,'' North and South, shall be induced 
to join hands and hearts in generous, confiding and. 
harmonious co-operative work for the salvation and 
consequent elevation of this race, dwelling with us 
in our common heritage, then will the author's pui- 
pose have been fully realized, and the country will 
have made sensible progress toward the solution of 
the race question, and the church gratifying advance 
in the settlement of a more interesting and impor- 
tant problem: How shall Africa in America be won. 
for Christ? 

R. Q. MALLARD. 

New Okleams, Louisiana, December^ 1891, 



CONTENTS. 



Paob. 
A WOED TO THE KeaDEE, ...... Y. 

CHAPTER I. 
Reasons fok Weiting axd Topics of Lettebs, . . 3 

CHAPTER II. 
The Wkitee's Connection with Slayeey and Slaves, . 8 

CHAPTER III. 
The Old Plantation, . 14 -^ 

CHAPTER lY. 
Occupations ant) Spoets, ...... 20 

CHAPTER V. 

The Negeo— How He was Housed, Fed, Clothed, 

Physicked, and "SVoeked, . . . . . 29 -*■ 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Negro— How He was Go\'ebned, . . . . 38 — 

CHAPTER YII. 
Maekiage and Family Relations, . . . .47 

CHAPTER VI IL 
" Daddy Jack. " — A Cuhious Chabactee, . . .54 



CoN'. 



CHAPTER II. Page. 

Folk Lore of the Negro, ...... 62 

CHAPTEP. X. 
Old Midway — A. Typical CHriiori, . . . .74 

CHAPTEP XI. 
Sacrament Sunday at Old Midway, . . . . 81 

CHAPTER XII. 
A Missionary to the Blacks — A Sketch of His Life, . 91 

CHAPTER XIII. 
A Missionary to the Blacks — Hrs L vboes Amono Them, 101 

CHAPTER XIV. 

A IMlSSIONARY TO THE BlACKS — HiS LaBORS FOR ThEM, . Ill 

CHAPTER XV. 

A Missionary to the Blacks— His Labors for Them, . 121 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Religioi:s Anecdotes of the Negro, .... 130 

CHAPTER XVI I. 

What was done for the Negro by Other Men and 
Women, Ministers, Churckes, and Communi- 
ties, 141 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Sea-Board of South Carolina, .... 152. 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Personal Recollections of Another Missionary to 

the Blacks, 162 



Contents. xi 

CHAPTER XX. Paoe. 

The First Southern Geneeal Assembly, . . . 172 

CHAPTER XXL 

The Fiest Geneeal Assembly and the Negeo : its 
Manifesto on the Subject to the Chuech Uni- 

VEBSAl, 183 

CHAPTER XXII. 
The Fikst General Assembly and the Negeo — Tke 
Address of Dr. Jones on the Religious Instruc- 
tion OF Negroes, . . . . , .194 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Conduct of the Negro During the War, . . . 208 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
Conclusion, 233 



PLANTATION LIFE 

Before emancipation, 



CHAPTEE I. 

REASONS FOR WRITING AND TOPICS OF 
LETTERS. 

IT was in May, 1 8G4, that J ohnson issued his cele- 
brated battle-order at Cass Station, on the line 
of the Atlantic and Western railroad. Our forces 
were in fine trim, anxious for the fray, and confident 
of victory. Tho expressed inability of two corps 
commanders to hold the positions a-ssigned them oc- 
casioned its recall, and another move in the masterly 
retreat, before an army almost thrice the size of the 
Confederate force, effected in such good order that, 
as one of the General's staff remarked, "he had not 
left so much as a half grindstone north of the Eto- 
wah," a retreat, however, very discouraging, since it 
involved the surrender of the mountain fastnesses, 
the fall and destruction, by vandal torch, c/f Atlanta, 
and ilie unobstructed march of Sherman to the sea. 



4 Plantation Life 

Our relief committee had gone to the front, in an- 
ticipation of a great battle, when, on the evening of 
the 19th instant, Tve received orders to fall back 
across the river. As the night drew on, and we 
sought to snatch a httle sleep upon boxes and bar- 
rels, there mingled with the rumbhng of the wheels 
the monotonous but pleasant tones of a boy's voice, 
that of a little drummer, perched upon the roof; 
and this was the ditty sung by him over and over 
again, with the ceaseless cadence of pounding feet: 

" In eighteen sixty-one 
This war begun ; 
In eighteen sixty-fonr 
This war will be o'er. " 

The song was history; it had nearly proved pro- 
phecy. In the winter of 1864 the Confederacy was 
almost in its death throes, and in the following 
Fpiing a handful of war-worn veterans tearfully 
folded the Stars and Bars, and our chief yielded up 
his knightly sword with a dignity only equalled by 
the magnanimity of the victor. 

For twelve years in succession I have had the 
pleasure of reading the annual addresses of Colonel 



Before Emancipation. 6 

Charles C. Jones, Jr., LL. D., President of the 
"Confederate Survivors' Association," of Augusta, 
Ga. I do not remember one which has not feeling 
sketches of some dead comrades who wore the gray. 
It reminds us of the raj^idity with which the actors 
in those scenes, already covered by the obliterating 
waters of a quarter century, are " crossing the river," 
we trust, "to rest in the shade of the trees." Since 
this continent shook with the tread of armed hosts, 
a new generation has sprung into manhood and 
womanhood, to whom war experiences and planta- 
tion life are only traditions. It has occurred to one 
who had attained his majority before the tocsin of 
war summoned North and South to the field, and 
who, from birth, was intimately associated with that 
which was, at least, the occasion, of the tremendous 
conflict, that a short series of letters upon the topic 
at the head of this article might not only prove 
X^leasing to those who have had similar experiences, 
and interesting to those readers who were born 
since, or who were too young to have any distinct 
recollection of either war or plantation life in slavery 
times, but would, at the same time, subserve some 
graver and more im2:)ortant purposes, to be developed 



6 Plantation Llf'e 

as we proceed. AVe shall have occasion to picture a 
civilization peculiar, aud ^Yhich can never be repeat-- 
ed in this country. Perhaps it will be seen that 
slavery, with all its confessed evils, was not "the 
sum of villainies," as some termed it, but had its re- 
deeming qualities; that the common relations be- 
tween master and slave were not of tyranny on the 
one side and of reluctant submission on the other ; 
that our fathers, convinced that the institution was 
not in itself immoral, but scriptural, angered justly, 
and handicapped by the persistent efforts of Aboli- 
tionists to stir the slave even to insurrection, did 
much for the religious and mental elevation of their 
people. 

The topics, subject to modification, and contrac- 
tion or expansion, as necessity may require or mood 
suggest, that will be treated of, are : to state them 
as they now lie in the writer's mind, such as these — 
the ^Titer's connection with slavery and slaves ; the 
old plantation described ; plantation occupations and 
sports 5 houses, food, physic, work, government, and 
family relations ; Sacrament Sunday on plantation ; 
"Daddy Jack," a curious character; a missionary to 
ihe blacks ; anecdotes, mainly rehgious, of the negro ; 



Before Emancipation. 7 

what the South did for his salvation and elevation ; 
our First General Assembly and the negro; the 
slaves during the civil war, etc. Our letters "will bo 
brief, but, it is trusted, sufficiently fall to accom- 
■^hsh the ■\;\'riter's purj^ose. May they, under God, 
result in renewing the kindly feelings which bound 
together the two races in the olden time, somewhat 
ahenated, not simply by the results of the war, but 
by events since, which need not be named now, as 
they are past, let us hope forever. Possibly in the 
restoration of such feelings may lie at least an aj)- 
proximate solution (;i the race problem, now so 
deeply agitating the public mind. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE WRITERS CONNECTION WITH SLAVERY 
AND SLAVES 

IT was my lot from infancy to mid-life to have been 
intimately associated with that race whose pre- 
mature enfranchisement wrought such temporary 
mischief in state, and whose present and future po- 
litical and ecclesiastical status fills the hearts of 
statesmen and Christians alike with concern. I was 
the son of a well-to-do slaveholder, and myself, 
although never a planter, an owner at my marriage, 
hy the generous gift of my father, of some of his 
trustiest and best servants, and also as trustee in my 
wife's right, and having our own servants always 
wnth us until emancipation. 

The memories of that connection are of almost 
unmixed pleasure. In the interests of truth and can- 
dor, which I intend shall characterize these letters, I 
should here remark that I saw slavery under its 
most favorable aspects. My home was in Liberty 
counts-, Ga., where that curse of Ireland, Imidlord 



Before Eivlincipation. 9 

(ihs^enteeism^ did nut exist, the planters, iilmost Avitli- 
out exception, visiting their plantations during the 
summer at least twice a week, and spending the 
six months, including the winter, among them; in 
this county, too, at the period when my recollections 
of slavery began, our people had enjoyed for some 
time the apostolical labors of Bev. C. C. Jones, 
D. D., nomen clarum. et venerabile. It is beheved, 
however, that my experience will be found typical of 
the general experience ; for while the congestion of 
the negro population in the rice and sugar districts, 
and measurably in some parts of the cotton belt, 
was accompanied by evils elsewhere unknown, it is 
beheved that the great majority of this race were 
distributed into smaller bodies, in more direct con- 
tact with their masters. 

As a babe, I drew a part at least of my nourish- 
ment from the generous breasts of a colored foster 
mother, and she and her infant son always held a 
peculiar place in my regards. A black nurse taught 
me, it is probable, my first steps and first words, 
and was as proud of both performances as the 
happy mother herself. With little dusky playmates, 
much of my holiday on the old plantation in the 



10 Plantation Lite 

winter season was passed. Some jmrents were in 
this matter more j^articular tlian mine. On one 
plantation, I remember, tlie mle was that the white 
and black children were both pmiished if found 
playing- together. IMy association with them was, I 
admit, somewhat to the detriment of my grammar, 
a fault which my schoolmaster speedily remedied, 
but never to the damage of my morals; for be it 
recorded, to their everlasting honor, while their 
^vords were sometimes coarse, they were rarely 
vulgar, and never profane. My experience may 
have been exceptional, but I do not remember, even 
among the adults, a single profane swearer ! 

With my little playmates I, as other children who 
are constantly rehearsing the drama of life, some- 
times played at preaching ; our pews, the leaf of a 
door set against the palings; three shingles, con- 
veniently arranged, my pulpit; and a small book, 
which I could not read, my Bible and hymn book ; 
if the preaching was short and incoherent, the sing- 
ing was neither. In my case this peculiar turn was 
not strange, for I bore the name of one of our -oas- 
tors (the extent of the area occupied by the congre- 
gation during summer made the services of two ne- 



Before Ealv^xipation. 11 

cessaiy), and my father s plantation residence being 
next but one the nearest to the church, and he a 
prominent officer of it, was the preacher's home^ In 
those days the old INIidway church ^vas known far 
and wide ; and many is the ISTorthem preacher \dsit- 
ing the South (not to say Southern) who found a 
warm welcome beneath the roof of our paternal man- 
sion. Among them a frequent guest was the vener- 
able octogenarian, Eev. Dr. McWhii', a polished 
Iiish gentleman, finished scholar and learned divine, 
who had taught a school of which Washington was 
a trustee, and was the minister to whom the Presi- 
dent apologized for returning thanks in his presence, 
replying to jMi's. "Washington's remark, "My dear, 
you forget that there is a clergyman at the table ;" 
"My dear, I wished him to know that I am not a 
graceless man." Here, too, winter after ■\\inter, was 
entertained Rev. Dr. Ebenezer Porter, of Andover 
Seminary, then admired all over the country', as 
much for the soundness as the solid attainments of 
its learned faculty. I remember to have heard my 
father say that Dr. P. was accustomed to observe 
that he always felt like taking oil" his hat in the pres- 



12 Plantation Life 

ence cf the grand old moss-covered live oaks, for 
^'hicli that region was and is noted. 

At college, to wliicli I went witli the lively sym- 
pathy and good wishes of our people, I recall the 
faithful service of Uncle Peter, and at the seminary 
of Uncle Jack, not to speak of their wives. In the 
up-country, the titles of respect which Southern 
children were taught never to omit, vrere "Uncle" 
and ''Aimty;" in the low country it was "Daddy" 
and "Maumma." 

Coming events seem to have cast their shadows 
before them ; for the child-preacher, when he came 
forth from the school of the prophets, began to 
preach to negroes in earnest, in their own special 
building (and a more appreciative and sympathizing 
audience he never has had) ; and in the old ances- 
tral church, in which master and servant worshiped 
together, the colored people packing the wide, deep 
galler}', baptized from the same marble font, and 
taking the elements of bread and w^ine at the same 
time, from the silver baskets and gold-lined silver 
goblets, the gift of deceased slave-holders to the 
church. My first sole pastoral charge embraced a 
colored as well as a white membership, ai;d among 



Before Emancipation. 13 

the former were some of my most consistent and 
^ alued membei's imd attentive listeners. A regular 
Sabbatli-school for them, children and adults, was 
taught by my young people, using Dr. C. C. Jones* 
Catechism, a manual prepared especially for them. 
And they also drilled them in hymns and tunes. 
Catechumens were carefully instructed by the young 
pastor in his .own parlor, using the same manual as 
his basis. Besides preaching to them, where com- 
fortable accommodations were provided in the com- 
mon church, a weekly lecture, for which he made the 
same preparation which he did for the lecture to the 
whites, was delivered to full and moot appreciative 
congregations, in a neat church building built for 
them by the trustees (all slave owners) of a benevo- 
lent fund, left to the county by a deceased slave- 
holder. 

The unavoidable personal tinge given to this letter 
claims, as its justification, the necessity of estabhsh- 
ing the competency and credibility of the witness. 



CHAPTEK III. 

THE OLD PLANTATION, 

IT was situated in rich lands, abounding in malaria, 
against whicli only tlie negro was proof. I re- 
member an instance of a planter who had spent 
only one night on his plantation in this region, har- 
vesting his com, rendered desperately sick by it; and 
another, who Hved in our village, dying from a high 
grade of bilious fever thus contracted. Conse- 
quently, the summer months were spent by the 
white families in what was known as " summer re- 
treats." or villages located out in the pine forests; 
the return to the plantation was not considered safe 
until a killing frosfc had fallen. 

How we children watched with our keen eyes and 
ears for the first signs which nature gave of winter's 
approach ! What joy it was to see the yellowing 
leaves of the old china trees, which grew near the 
academies and old Union church, the poverty of the 
soil hastening the process; to feel the evenings 
14 



Before Ejianctpation. 15 

growing- cooler and cooler ; to catch the first notes of 
"the six weeks' bird," which we implicitly believed 
always sang just that length of time before frost; to 
hear the woodman's axe, as he cut and split the great 
vpine logs for the ordinarily unused fire-places of the 
summer home; and oh! the hapjoiness to wake 
some bright morning and find the grass in the lawn 
all covered with mimic snow, and as we chased each 
other around the yard to mark the vapor pour- 
ing from our parted lips; we children called it 
" smoke ! " 

"Word is sei:t down to the plantation — and not 
soon enough fur our impatience — there come to 
move such furniture as we carried from one home to 
the other the double-horse wagon, and the two slow- 
mo\ing ox-carts. Before we can get ready to start, 
Stingo, the old yard dog, a beast of exceeding ill- 
temper, aggravated by age, and, I am sorry to say, 
by the plaguing of his young master, to which his 
churUsh disposition naturally exposed him, divining 
the cause of the unusual stir, set out by himself, 
and all alone made the journey of fifteen miles of 
good road, ready on our arrival to take charge of 
the familv in their winter home. 



16 Plantation Life 

Then the carriage and buggy are made ready, 
father, and mother, and children and nurse jmcked 
ill, and we are, to our infinite delight, actually off at 
last for our winter hohday and the unspeakable joys 
of plantation life. On the way we halt at a clear 
spring, bubbling up by the roadside, and lunch, al- 
ways, among other tempting edibles, uj^on short- 
ened Johnny-cake ! I wi&h it were in my power to 
give the housekeepers of our day the recipe ; I only 
remember it was baked on a long clean board leaned 
before a wood fire, and was ambrosia to our healthy 
young appetites. 

Resuming our journey along the broad, splendid 
roads, worked every fall by details of plantation la- 
borers, under white supervision, we j-iass the old 
church where we shall worship anon, and of which 
more hereafter ; drive along the wide Sunbury high- 
way a half mile or more, and then turn at a right 
angle into our avenue, lined with live oaks, loading 
up to the plantation mansion. It is an unpretend- 
ing structure, a large and roomy cottage of one and 
a-half storey, unpainted, a chimney of brick at one 
end, of clay at the other, a piazza running around 
two sides, and its gable end facing the avenue. It 



T>EFORE ElVLA-NOIPATION. 17 

lias only four glazed -windows, two ligliting the par- 
lor, and the other two our parents' room just oppo- 
site, the panes small, and so imperfect that many is 
the time that our youthful imagination occupied 
itself, while waiting for the house-girl to kindle the 
fire in mother's chamber, in shaping its bubbles 
and defects into the images of different creatui'es. 
The parlor, the common li\dng room, is papered 
vrith a pattern I have never seen elsewhere — a 
curious group of figures, which I see distinctly be- 
fore me as I write. There is on the wide fireplace, 
with its fender and andirons, polished until you can 
see 3'our face in them, a generous supply of oak and 
rich pine, but the big door leading out upon the 
piazza is persistently left open, I presmne for venti- 
lation, but bringing the sensations of freezing and 
burning into startling conjunction! 

The arrangement of the houses is somewhat pecu- 
liar, but convenient, and apparently made upon the 
principle of placing everything as far as possible 
under the master's eye. Looking out from the front 
door, you see on your right the smoke and meat 
house, made of yellow clay, in which the bacon (for 
our planter raises or purchases his hogs from his 



18 Plantation Lite 

own 2>eople) is cured and stored; on the left-hand 
corner, and in sight, is the kitchen, where French 
cooks are completely distanced in the production of 
wholesome, dainty and appetizing food ; for if there 
is any one thing for w^hich the African female intel- 
lect has natural genius, it is for cooking. Just over 
the palings of the front yard, you see the cotton 
houses, and directly in front the horse gin, with its 
wide branching arms carrying round and round all 
day the noisy rattling chain which turns the hick- 
ory rollers inside, with their lij^s separating the little 
black seeds from the fleecy lint, piling up in a grow- 
ing bank of snow behind the screen. On the left, 
just beyond the stile (we called it the ''blocks"), 
your eye takes in the stables and carriage-houses, 
and still farther away, and stretching to the left and 
in front, the single and double rows of cottages, the 
" quarters," the homes of the laborers, with their veg- 
etable gardens, chicken coops, pig pens, rice ricks, 
and little store-houses. The only thing in the rear, 
and invisible from the front door, are the rice barns 
and winnowing house (for rice and Pea Island cotton 
constitute about in equal parts the market crop), and 
the vegetable garden, stocked ^yith broad-headed 



Before Emancipation. 19 

cabbages in ^vinter, aud with its- beds of fragrant 
chiysanthemums and tlie sweetest roses I have ever 
smelt! On every band, the corn fields, with their 
brown stalks, and cotton fields with their leafless 
black bushes, stretching away to the encircling for- 
ests, and beyond them on the left the read leading 
by two tall svreetgums to the rice fields, great lakes 
now, and frequented by waterfowl, and fringed with. 
the dense moss-draped cypress swamps. 

Such is a picture of the plantation home in which 
a large part of the sunny days of my childhood and 
youth were spent, and in immediate contact with the 
African race ; and here fur the present I close. 



I 



CHAPTEB lY. 

OGGTTPATIONS AliD SPORTS. 

T is not iny intention to describe in tliis letter the 
ordinar}' work of a plantation, but only the occn- 
i^ations and amusements of the younger members of 
ihe planter's household. 

Many of these Tvere shared by the boys and girls 
of the family in their earlier years. These were, 
first, the almost daily visits to the cotton houses, 
where it was a pleasure to help the little slaves in 
beating up with switches the snowy cotton, as it lay 
upon the elevated scaffolding, airing 'in the winter's 
sunshine ; or to take hold of the crank of the whip- 
per, which, with its long revolving shaft, with num- 
erous radiating spokes, separated the dust and trash 
from the cotton ; and then to stand by the ginner and 
watch him, or be permitted for a few minutes our- 
selves to feed the grooved hickory rollers, as they 
draw in the fleecy cotton and divide the lint from the 
seed; or to supervise the packer, as suspended in liiri 
20 



Before Emancipation. 21 

distended bag from tlie upper floor, with many a 
grunt, he, ^vith Lis lieaTv pestle, forces the Hnt into 
the bale. Then what joy it was, in the keen winter's 
air, to perch iipon the long beam outside, and travel 
miles and miles in a circle, ever repeating itself, per- 
mitted as a special favor, for which a plate from tho 
dinner table was exacted and willingly promised, 
and paid ourselves to drive the team. 

At another time the barn-yard would be the spe- 
cial attraction, with its long parallel stacks of shea\es 
of golden rice. The dirt floor is beaten hard and 
swept clean, and the sheaves arranged upon it side 
by side ; and now the str.lvrart laborers, with their 
hickory flails, beat off the heads of grain from the 
yellow straw; the obhging servants make for us 
children, or, if sufficiently skillful, we make ourselves, 
lighter flails, and, with our slighter blows, emulate 
in fun the heavier strokes of the men. And now the 
grain and broken straw are taken in baskets up the 
steps of the lofty winnowing house, which stands, 
stilt-Hke, upon its four upright posts; and as the 
grain and beaten straw are forced through a grated 
hole in the floor, the mnd (faithfully whistled for) 
comes and caiTies off the chaff, and the round mound 



22 Plantation Life 

of rice steadily grows beneath. The rhythmical 
beat of the numerous flails is accompanied by a reci- 
tative and improvised song of endless proportions, 
led by one musical voice, all joining in the chorus, 
and can be heard a mile away, "The joy of the har- 
vest," of which a Hebrew prophet speaks. 

A speU of cold weather sets in, and now the well- 
fattened hogs must be killed, dressed, and cured. 
"We look on in the frosty air of 'the early morn, inter- 
ested spectators, as the porkers are each dispatched 
by one dexterous blow of the axe, and then immersed 
in a cask of hot water to take off the hair, and aid in 
the trjdng up of the fat into lard and "cracklings," 
and, nothing loth, assist in the discussion at the 
family table of the spare-ribs and sausages; then 
there are horses to be ridden, find the difficult art 
acquired of keeping one's equilibrium upon the per- 
ilous edge of a frisky steed ; then there are evening 
walks with our sisters up the long oak-lined avenue, 
and rambles through the encircling woods in pur- 
suit of the black sloes and yellow haws and other 
winter berries. And then in early spring the cattle, 
turned out to graze in the fields and forests in the 
mild Southern winters, are to be hunted up and 



Before Emancipation. 23 

penned, and the young calves marked and branded; 
the latter operation performed by the cowherds, and 
the former furnishing" ample field for the exercise of 
our newly-acquired horsemanship. 

As we grow older, our sisters and us boys begin 
io separate in our pursuits for the most pai*t. Now 
comes the savage age, the peiiod of traps and bows 
r.nd arrows; and many is the sparrow and robin 
brought home to our admiring sisters as trophies of 
our woodcraft and skillful marksmanship. From the 
Indian's implements, we are at last promoted to 
more civilized weapons, and actually (oh ! height of 
a country boy's ambition!) own horse, saddle and 
bridle, dog and gun. Many now is the gray squii'- 
rel, and long-eared rabbit, and gentle-eyed dove, and 
plump partridge that falls under our new weapon. 
And, grown more ambitious, bird-shot is exchanged 
for duck and turkey-shot; and with my "man Fri- 
day" or boy "Dick" as inseparable companion, we 
are off for the rice-fields. In those days the teal 
and English ducks, as we called them, abounded in 
the two rice swamps between which the plantation 
was situated ; and occasionally a flock of wild geese, 
to my intense excitement, settled down among them. 



24: Plantation Life 

"When frightened from their feeding-grounds by the 
passing of a "wagon over the causeway "bridges, or 
the sound of a gun, the water fowl took flight for a 
few minutes, to circle around and then to return, 
the noise of their wings was like that of a mighty 
rushing wind. The settlement of the Northern 
lakes, their breeding places even before I was grown, 
perceptibly diminished their numbers. "Well do I 
remember the day when two fortunate successive 
shots brought me nine fat ducks, five of which I 
shouldered, leaving four for my faithful companic ai ; 
and it was no light task to get them home. But I 
felt proud as Julius Cossar decreed by the Roman 
Senate a triumph, and coming home from the wars 
of Gaul or of Britain, when I passed the groups of 
servants about the cotton-houses and listened to 
their admiring commeuts. To secure these trophies 
I did not scruple, with my little comrade, to crush, 
barefooted and barelegged, a whole day through the 
thin ice which crusted the broad, overflowed rice- 
flelds, and suffered no harm. I was never tyranni- 
cal, as Southern boys generall}^ were not, but some- 
times a little positive and threatening in making 
Pick divest himself of pants, that he might cross 



Before Emancipation. 25 

some deej) canal, -whicli liis young master did not 
care, with his rolled-up trousers, to attempt, to get 
his dead birds. Later on, duck and tui'kej-shot 
gave way to buckshot; but of that I ^^■ill not now 
^ write, because it would take me into manhood. 

Often I made adventurous Tojages in the lake- 
like rice fields in mj bateau, with its extemporized 
sail, and prudently provisioned with sweet potatoes 
roasted in a fire built on shore. Coffin shaped, 
when it was building in the street of "the quai'ters," 
the servants, as they came in from their work, with 
concern depicted in their faces, would ask, "T\"ho 
is dead?" leading some of the family to i^redict that 
it would prove my coffin, which prediction, hke many 
others as human, has proven false. 

Then, when the dog- wood flower whitened the for- 
ests, came the spring fishing. Our rice fields were 
drained by wide, deep canals, stocked ^\-ith various 
kinds of fresh water fish — trouts, mud-fish, cats, 
eels, chubs, perch (I give our names without vouch- 
ing for their correctness). " Golden's drain" ("dreen" 
my black companions termed it,) was the canal 
oftenest visited, and with best results. I can re- 
member to this day the veiy appearance of the dif- 



26 Plantation Life 

f erent j^laces -svhere we broke oiir -way tlii'ough the 
sea myrtles to get tlie water's edge ; and some posi- 
tions inconveniently near tlie holes in the bank of 
two big alligators, male and female, which we had 
named. 

Later in the season, as the waters became low, our 
negro men and boys '■'churned" for fish — a sport 
in which I sometimes shared. The operation was 
this: A flour barrel was taken, both ends knocked 
out, and the hoops secui'ed ; then a half-dozen boys 
and men, thus provided, would range themselves 
across a canal, and moving in concert, would each 
bring his barrel at intervals down to the bottom. 
The moment a fish was covered, its presence 
was betrayed by its beating against the staves in its 
efforts to escape ; when the fisherman instantly cov- 
ered his barrel with his breast, and with his hands 
speedily cai:)turing it, threw it to the little negroes 
on the dam, who quickly strung it upon stripped 
branches of the sea myrtle tree. How they man- 
aged to handle the cat fish, with its sharp and 
23oisonous spines, I cannot imagine; perhaps their 
horny hands were impervious to them, as they were 
to the live coals of fire which I have often seen them 



Before Emancipation. 27 

transfer v^ith. naked fingers from lieailli to i^ipe; 
sometimes (an experience of which I have a lively 
personal recollection) a moccasin was covered, and 
then there vras a inish to the shore, minus barrel. 

As the rice fields later in the spring di'ied up in 
the heat, they left exposed the holes of the alliga- 
tors — an animal which, more frequently than v.e 
liked, fed on uncured bacon, and occasionally docked, 
without improving her beauty, the tail of some 
thirsty cow. And now a long, lithe, slender pole is 
cut, its larger end fiuTiished vdth. a stout iron hook, 
and a negro man wading up to his waist in the wa- 
ter, feels with it until he touches the living occu- 
pant, when with a dexterous turn he fastens the hook 
under the aUigator's foreleg, and now commences 
the tug of war ! He is by main force dragged (in 
which operation other willing hands join) to the 
land, the pole allowed to turn ^^'ith his revolutions 
as he comes to the shore, hissing like a goose. By 
a well-aimed blow of the axe, his head, with its for- 
midable armature of teeth, is severed from its dan- 
gerous muscle, and his almost equally formidable 
weapon, his sweeping tail, is paralyzed. Sometimes, 
when unable to find the saurian, the pole is with- 



28 Plantation Lifk. 

drawn ; tliere are marks of teeth in startling prox- 
imity to the portion grasped by human hands! 
Well do I remember that, when somewhat callow, I 
would occasionally take to a tree until assured that 
the decapitation was a success ! 

It is easy to see how such a life, in which white 
and black, with the due subordination of master and 
servant preserved, shared the same sports, contribu- 
ted to the familiar and affectionate relations which 
so notoriously from childhood bound master and 
servant together; and how it gave the Southern 
youth a skill with fire-arms rarely attained in a 
shooting galler}', and a free, firm, and graceful seat 
in the saddle, seldom if ever acquired in the saw- 
dust arena of a riding school; and how it developed 
a splendid physical manhood, unknown to the dwell- 
ers in the cities, with their billiard table exercise 
and theatrical diversions, and what is at best but a 
poor substitute for outdoor sports, the gj-mnasium. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NEGRO— HOW HE WAS HOUSED, FEB, 
CLOTHED, PHYSICKED, AND WORKED, 

IN this letter I shall speak, not v.ithout passing 
allusions to practices prevailing elsewhere, mainly 
of the general custom, with regard to the above mat- 
ters, in my own native county; convinced that the 
representation will be recognized by the well-in- 
formed as a fair average picture of the conduct of 
the entire South. 

The houses on some plantations were constructed 
of sawed lumber, furnished by the adjacent water- 
mills, or cut out by the negro sawyers laboriously, 
and not very accurately, with the whip-saw, w^orked 
in pen or pit, and making a tolera^jiy fair joint pos- 
sible. On our plantation they were, for the most 
part, covered with a weather-boarding of clapboards, 
split along the grain with what was called a fi'ow, 
and from short cuts of cypress logs, and not admit- 
ting of a very close fitting. The houses were never 

lined within, so that only the thickness of a single 
29 



30 Plantation Life 

board kept out the winter's air and cold. Usually 
the house had two or more unglazed windows, and 
a front and a back door, and was warmed by a clay 
chimney, wdth a wide hearth, abundantly supplied 
with oak and pine. Tou entered first the common 
living room. Separated from it, and with its door, 
was the family bedroom ; and if the children w^ere 
half-grown, you would find frequently one or two 
** shed-rooms," or leantos, in the rear, furnishing all 
proper privacy. The furnishing of the servants' 
home was primitive. There were a few benches and 
a rude rocker, all of home manufacture ; shelves in 
the comer, containing neatly scrubbed pails and 
"piggins," made by the plantation coopers of alter- 
nate strips of redolent white cypress and fragrant 
red cedar, bright tins and white and colored plates, 
witb the never absent long-necked gourd dipper, and 
beneath them the ovens, pots and skillets, the simple 
but most efficient paraphernalia of the mother cook. 
The bedroom had a few boxes, containing the 
simple finery and Sunday clothes of the family ; the 
week-day garments hung upon a string stretched 
across the corner ; the bedstead consisted of a few 
boards nailed across a pair of tres-tles, and covered 



Before Emancipation. 31 

^\itli the soft black moss so abundantly yielded by 
the adjacent swamps, and quite a number of good 
warm blankets, in wliicli the sleepers, oblivious of 
change of seasons, would wrap themselves up, until 
not a square inch of sable skin was exposed. 

TheirybocZ was mainly maize, which, where a public 
mill was handy, was ground for them ; on my father's 
l^lace they groimd it themselves on the common 
hand mill; also the sweet potato, abounding in 
starch, the main nutritious ingredient in all food 
products ; and easily and quickly cooked in the ashes, 
or baked before a fire. The weekly allowance for a 
" hand " or f uU worker was, I believe, a peck of corn, 
and four quarts additional for every child; and a 
half bushel of sweet potatoes to each adult, and to 
each child in same proportion. This weekly fare the 
year round was with us supplemented, in the season 
when the work was unusually heavs', by rations of 
molasses, or bacon, or salt fish; and an occasional 
beef. To this, thiifty serv-ants added rice, of which 
they were as fond as the Chinese, and which they cul- 
tivated themselves in patches allotted them, and with 
seed and time afibrdcd by their masters ; and chickens 
and bacon of their own raising and cui'ing, and fish 



32 Plantation Life 

of their OY/n catching. So abundant were the rations 
of corn, that at the end of a week the careful house- 
holder sent quite a bag of it to the store to be ex- 
changed for cahco or tobacco ! 

>-' As to their clothing^ two good strong suits were 
given every year — in the summer, white Osnaburgs ; 
in the winter, a kind of jeans, partly cotton and 
mostly wool, and stout brogans. The clothes were 
often cut and made up " in the big house " by negro 
seamstresses. The house-women were clad in a very 
neat fabric called "linsey woolsey," and with the 
house-boys fell heirs to the half-worn garments of 
the young masters and mistresses. A good warm 
blanket was given each worker every alternate year ; 
so that a little care accumulated an abundance of 
warm bed covering. 

As for iheiv .j^hA/sicing, this was largely, and not 
unskillfully, done by the planter himself. In each 
plantation library was a book of medicine — my 
father's, I remember, w^as "Ewell's Practice" — 
books written without technical j)hrases, clearly de- 
scribing, in the language of the common people, dis- 
eases and their remedies. As the maladies of the 
Africr.n, with his simple civilization, were rarely ob- 



Before Emancipation. 33 

Bcure, many planters acquired a very considerable 
skill in diagnosing and prescribing; and probably 
killed no more of their i)atients than tlie J'oung 
M. D. graduate is said to kill, just in getting his hand 
^n ! A big jug of castor oil "was al^^-ays on hand, but 
it had to be kept under lock and key, so f(jnd was 
the darkey of dosing himself for Sinj and every ail- 
n.ent with that antiquated and heroic remedy; an- 
other thing he had the utmost faith in was the lan- 
cet; for, according to his simple therapeutics, it let 
the bad blood out; just as rubbing a sprained ankle 
"with cold water toward the toes would send the in- 
flammation from their tips into nothingness ! "WQien 
a case, however, was too serious or complicated, or 
obscure, for the planter's knowledge or skill, or ob- 
stinately refused to yield to the few remedies of his 
materia medlca, Tom or Jerry was mounted on a 
swift horse and sent post haste for the doctor, five 
or ten miles away! "WTienever we met a negro rid- 
ing furiously, we always divined, " Going for the 
doctor," and w^ere seldom wrong. He only checked 
up his foaming steed long enough to confirm our 
surmise, for it was his pecuhar joy to tell the news, 
especially if bad. The doctor, it must be admitted^ 



34 Plantation Life 

had but a poor chance either to cure or at his leisure 
to run u^) a bill, and this practice of only sending for 
his ser\dces in desperate cases depressed patient and 
doctor and nurses, and contributed sometimes to a 
fatal result. '' To send for the doctor " was, in planta- 
tion belief, to give up the case ; and the doctor's pa- 
tients recovered only by a special miracle ; but v\'hen 
they did not, they at least died secicndem arton. 

As for their wo^'k, they were never called out in 
the rain, and open sheds were always j^i'O'^'ided in 
distant fields against thunder showers. In some 
parts of the South the^' were, with an interval of a 
noon day rest of several hours, in the field from 
"sun up" to "sun down," but in all such instances 
their food was cooked for them, and they were gen- 
erously fed upon full rations of bacon. With us the 
work was, in the main, extremely light. It was the 
duty of the men to split the pine rails vrith which 
the plantation was enclosed, to clear the forest from 
the "new ground" prepared for tillage. The wo- 
men and the "thrash gang" — i. e., the half gTown 
boys and girls — made up the fences, the men com- 
monly drove the plow, the women never handled 
anything]: heavier than the hoe ; in the har^^est both 



Before Emancipation. 35 

used tlie sickle , the men tbreslied the rice and trod 
the cotton foot-gin, while to the women was assigned 
the easier task of sorting the lint of its specks and 
leayes. Our lands were light and friable and easily 
worked, and for a large part of spring and summer 
the hands were allotted task work; and many is tlie 
time I have in the spring season seen the industri- 
ous laborer shouldering his hoe, with the sun high 
in the sky, ready to work his own allotted patch in 
the rice field, or to go "chui'ning" or lounging and 
gossiping in the village street ! 

Compare the average house of the slave with the 
one-roomed mud hovel of the Irish tiller in Roman 
Catholic Ireland, with no privacy by day or night ; 
the suitable and substantial clothing and bed cov- 
ering supplied the slave with the scanty and some- 
times ragged raiment of the poor in our great cities, 
and even laborers in our factories; their big fii-es, 
wood ad libitum, with the miserable, smoulderinir 
embers over which the poor sewing women crouch 
shivering ill Northern cities ; the excellent nui'sing 
and good medical attention given the slave, with the 
condition of many of the poor work-people, who dare 
not, or will not in their pride, call in a physician, for 



S6 Plantation Lite 

-whose services they are unable to pay j compare the 
hours of labor in the open au', not pushed to ex- 
haustion and comparatively short, ■with the long and 
drastic -work of many artisans, against "which there 
is a constant demand for restrictive legislation ; and 
add to this the consideration, that if the white mas- 
ter Hved in comparative luxury upon the fruit of the 
labor of his slaves, he had all the care and fore- 
thought and responsibilit}' of directing and organ- 
izing the labor for united efficiency; in a "word, that 
he supplemented the African brawn with An- 
glo-Saxon brain; and it will be perceived that no 
laboring popidation in the loorld irere ever better off 
than the Southern slaves/ and that there never was 
a falser accusation made against the Southern 
planter than this, harped upon by abolitionists of 
old, and repeated sometimes bg Northern i^eachers 
now, that ''he Jcept bach the hire of the laborer.''* 
The plain truth is just this, that oio tillers of the 
soil, in ancient or modern times, received such am- 
l^le compensation for their labors. He was not paid 
down, it is true, in cash, but he was amply compen- 
sated for his toil in free quarters, free medical at- 
tention, free food, free firew^ood, free support of sick. 



Before Emanch^ation. 37 

infirm, aged and youDg, aud the free supi)ly of that 
organizing faculty which utihzed labor and made it 
more productive and capable of supporting, ^Yithout 
the remotest fear of starvation, or even of scarcity, and 
'without appeal to j^ublic charity, of entire slave com- 
munities, often as large as that of a good-sized vil- 
lasre of whites! 



CHAPTER YI. 

THE NEGRO—HOW HE WAS GOVERNED. 

IT was not unusual for defenders of slavery to 
describe the institution as patriarchal; it was 
undoubtedly such, but with some important modifi- 
cations. Abraham was a nomad; he had no perma- 
nent connection with the soil^ nor acquired more than 
a transient ownership by the digging of wells for his 
jflocks ; he had not a foot of it in actual possession, al- 
though all Canaan was, by divine gift, his, for his 
posterity. He did not sow and reap, as did his son 
Isaac. Pie was in no sense amenable to the laws of 
the land in which he temporarily sojourned with his 
family and flocks. His household, composed of his 
wives and servants "born in his house," or "bought 
with his money," constituted an independent com- 
monwealth, of which he was the acknowledged sole 
and sovereign head; his will was law. On the con- 
trary, the planter and his household were a part of 
Iho State. His slaves were recognized as in measure 
38 



Before Emancipation. Sd 

the basis of the electoral apportionment. They -uere, 
so far as capital offences were concerned, amenable 
to the laws of the country. If a negro committed 
murder, he was, by white and black testimony, and 
the verdict of a white jury, condemned, and by a 
white judge sentenced, and by a white sheriff 
hung. But all other offences, such as are now car- 
ried by them into a justice's coiu't, were adjudi- 
cated by the master, from whose decision there was 
no appeal. 

First, the master was the supreme authority on 
the plantation, in all matters but those in which hu- 
man Hfe was involved. Was a servant suspected of 
or caught thieving, or fighting, or beating his wife, 
he was summoned before the master, the witnesses 
heard, and justice, without appeal to innumerable 
authorities or the "law's delay," swiftly overtook the 
offender; the invariable penalty: so many lashes, 
according to the gravity of the offence. Over the 
house servants, the mistress had co-ordinate author- 
ity; indeed, the master seldom interfered in the do- 
mestic rule, save when called upon to assist. The 
sons and daughters of the planter also exercised a 
measure of authority, especially over the younger^ 



40 Plantation Life 

slaves, altliougli tliej never, as a rule, were allowed 
to punish offenders. 

Next to the planter in authority was the overseer. 
It was mainly upon large plantations, where the mas- 
ter needed aid, or where the plantation was owned by 
an unprotected female, or where the owner was ha- 
T)itually non-resident, that this important official 
was brought into requisition. He was usually a 
Finall planter, of acknowledged skill and experience 
and success, ai:d ability to manage negroes. He 
usually Hved on the place, in a house provided i^n 
him, getting a small salary in mone}'^^, but allowed 
the use of horses, servants, food, and firewood. He 
was usually a man of family, and not infrequently 
saved enough to become in turn an owner of slaves 
and plantation. He exercised in the master's ab- 
sence, authority over the slaves, with plenary jDower 
to punish offenders against plantation law and neg- 
lect of work, and his instrument was the lash. 

Next to him stood the negro driver. Dr. C. C. 
Jones studiously avoided tlie use of this term, call- 
ing that official on his j)lantatioiis tbe "foreman;" 
but in reality tlio term in Southern ears had no more 
Buggestiveness ( f cruelty to men than the x^lirase 



Before E^l\ncipation. 41 

"carriage-driver" has of cruelty to aiiimals; and 
there was no more abuse of power ordinarily in the 
one case than in the other. The di'iver commonly 
carried what was known as a "cotton planter" — a 
short whip with heavy handle and tapering thong, 
plaited in one piece. It was usually worn around 
his shoulder, and was more a symbol of authority 
than an instrument of service; a reminder of the 
penalty of neglect than an implement of suffering. 

xsow, in regard to the actual exercise of this j)ower 
and authority by planter, overseer and driver, we 
hesitate not to affirm that it was, in the main, as 
humanely administered as the imperfection of hu- 
man nature permitted. As for the lash, it was used 
rarely upon the bare back, or excessively; and it 
should be remembered that it is only recently that 
flogging with the cat-o'-nine tails has been abolished 
in the navy. Although all intelligent slave-holders 
agreed with Dr. Thomwell, that all that the owner 
was entitled to was the reasonable service of the 
slave, and control of time and person only so far as 
was necessary to secure that end, there were un- 
doubtedly masters who, at least in practice, seemed 
to assume that they owned their bodies as well as 



42 Plantation Lite 

their service ; masters who abused their authority io 
corrupt. I recall one instance now in the family of 
a favorite body-servant of my father, whose wife be- 
longed to a wicked planter, although a professor of 
rehgion, in which, while only persuasion was used, 
the planter abused his position, with the consent of 
parents, to the ruin of a daughter; their insensi- 
bihty to the sin and shame was to me the saddest 
part of the business. Then there were planters who 
were cruel. I recall in our county only two ; the one 
a Southerner by birth. He flogged a slave to death ! 
But the fellow-servants of his victim informed on 
him; the body was exhumed and their statements 
found correct, and upon their testimony and circum- 
stantial proof he was, by a jury of indignant planters, 
sent to the Georgia penitentiary and ineffaceably 
branded as a felon. The other was a Northerner, 
and I remember to have heard the remark frequently 
made, that, while there were many honorable excep- 
tions, as a general rule, the Northerners made the 
severest masters; and the explanation given was 
that they had not grown up with and formed at- 
tachments to the negro, and judged his capa- 
city and energy by a white man's standard. This 



BeFOEE ElVIANCttATION. 43 

rcan was a member of our ancestral chui'ch; ac- 
tually had his cook up before the Session for not 
making the full tale of -waffles, as I have heard my 
father laughingly tell. Ee "was so miserly withal 
that on more than one occasion he was known to di- 
rect a belated trayeller to the minister's house as the 
village hotel, who, after "taking his ease at mine 
inn," and calling for all he wanted for man and beast, 
was, upon asking his bill next morning, astounded to 
find how he had been duped ! He was also credited 
with opening his ditches on Simday in a wet spell of 
weather — a thing unheard of in that Sabbath-ob- 
serving community — and of rationing his servants in 
part on sour oranges ! It was his practice to canter 
on his horse from slave to slave and whip them in 
the cotton rows! My father related that he once 
came unexpectedly upon him just emerging from the 
woods with an armful of young hickories; unable 
to hide them, he mumbled out an apology about 
"the aggravating character of negroes !" Well, his 
people killed him finally, as he deserved to be! 
Striking him in the head with the eye of a hoe, they 
saddled his Jiorse, and, whipping him, sent him fly- 
ing through the big gate and across the bn'dge to 



4:4 Plantation Liife 

the town ; aud adroitly bloodying a knot wliicli rose 
from one of the planks, they said that he had been 
thrown by his horse upon the bridge and instantly 
killed. Only a quarrel among them brought the 
killing to light a year after, when the body was 
taken up and examined and the story found correct. 
Several were convicted and hung. But I doubt not 
more sympathy was felt for the slave than the mas- 
ter. These were clearly exceptional cases, as rare, 
and no more indicative of general treatment of slaves 
than the conduct of the father who sat his child upon 
a red-hot stove to help him to recite the Shorter 
Catechism, is of the Northern Presbyterians' treat- 
ment of their children ! 

Humanity to slaves was secured by more than one 
influence. First, the Southern planter was as kind- 
hearted and naturally philanthropic as any class of 
men found anywhere; then wdth us he was usually a 
college-bred man and of liberal culture. Not a few 
of them were as noble Christian gentlemen as were 
ever produced by any civilization ; then there was a 
powerful pubhc sentiment, which osti'acized a cruel 
master. In addition to this, self-interest exercised a 
powerful influence in i-estraining from cruel treat- 



Before Emancipation. 45 

ment. Injury to the slave Tvas pecuniaiy loss. A 
curious illustration of the potency of this principle 
came under my observation in our civil -war. Plan- 
ters, who cheerfully surrendered theii' sons to the 
army, protested against the use of their slaves in 
the trenches ! Then, above all, there was a strong 
attachment between the master and the servant, the 
natural result of closest association from childhood, 
which made cruelty foreign to the very nature of the 
owner. 

As for the overseer, instances occur to me where 
the office was abused in both the directions just in- 
dicated. But these, again, were exceptional. The 
overseer usually enjoyed the protection of a family ; 
wife and children throwing around him all the re- 
straints of home life. He did not, jDerhaps, abuse 
his authority as a means of corruption, any more 
than the foreman of a factory ; then, if cruel in his 
treatment, there was always the right of appeal to 
the owner. Convicted, the overseer received his 
"walking papers," his salary in full, with notice to 
leave as soon as he could get ready, and with a 
damaged reputation. 

As for the negro driver, much the bame line ul 



4G Plantation Life 

remark applies to him. He was not sustained in his 
immorahlv, if he used his power to make hfe plea- 
sant, or the reverse, to the women slaves to accom- 
plish his purposes, and if cruel he w^as instantly de- 
p)Osed. The di'iver, the carpenter, the carriage- 
driver and the house sei'vant constituted the negro 
aristocracy. To be cast out of that favored circle 
of " the Tipper ten," was a disgrace almost more to 
"be dreaded than death. There was all the dishonor 
in being "broken" as a driver, as it was termed, 
that there is in the army in being reduced to the 
ranks ! It was by no means an unusual transaction, 
and occurred frequently enough to exercise a whole- 
some restraint upon the strong passions of the ne- 
^ro official. 

In our next we shall treat of the marriage and 
family relations of the negro. 



CHAPTEK VII. 

MAURI AGE AND FAMILY MEL AT ION'S. 

A HIGH officer of the Korthern Presbyterian 
Churcli, Eev. Dr. Allen, Secretar}- of the Freed- 
men's Committee, in his Quarter Century's Work 
Among the Freedmen, affii'ms that ^-hen his church 
undertook their evangelization, ''There was not a 
legal marriage among them, nor had been for two 
hundred years. A breach of the seventh command- 
ment was no bar to church communion. Their re- 
ligion was an enthusiasm rather than a principle, 
the enjoyment of religious worship depending 
chiefly upon the degree of animal excitement pro- 
duced. To ignore the fiftli, seventh, eighth and 
ninth commandments was not at all incoDsistent 
with their idea of the religion of Jesus." 

A slander, containing in it a measure of truth, is 
at once of the most offensive and dangerous kind. 
By it truth is dishonored, and error given what it 
does not in itself possess — vitality. Pndoubtedly, 

there were not in slavery times marriageij legahzed 
"47 



48 Plantation Life 

by such formal documents as licenses, issued by 
competent coui'ts ; and the master had, under the 
law, the power of separating, by sale or removal, 
husband and wife; as this was a right supposed, 
whether correctly or incorrectly, to be incident to 
ownership. In too many instances the marriage 
relation was thus broken up, not often voluntarily, 
but frequently j^rovidentially, by the death or bank- 
ruptcy of the master. But I have know^n instances 
in which the greatest sacrifices were made by hu- 
mane masters to keep husband and wife together. 
Let me give an example or two occurring under 
my own observation. Harry Stevens was a very val- 
uable slave, for he was a carpenter, pursuing his 
trade in Liberty and the adjoining counties, and 
paying his master a sure monthly and handsome 
wage, while laying by something for himself and 
family. His wife and family w^ere freed by thoir 
master and sent to Liberia. My father, m order 
not to separate the family, sacrificed half his value, 
or about $750 or $900, and the balance was made up 
by contributions of neighboring slave-holders, and 
Harry became a citizen of the free African Eepub- 
lic I I have known planters also to hire hands they 



Before E:\l\xcipation 49 

did not need, in order to keep husband and -u ife to- 
gether. A service of this kind, ^\-hich I had the op- 
portunity of rendering to a favorite servant, was 
last summer gratefully recalled to my mind by his 
HOW aged widow. 

The impression sought apparently to be made by 
the statement upon which we are animadverting is, 
that the marriage relation among the slaves was very 
loose and far from sacred. On the contrary, in our 
county not only was it gladly celebrated by the white 
pastor or colored minister, but, where they were 
preferred, by negro watchmen, who v.ere appointed 
by the church as a kind of under-shex^herds, and 
duly authorized to solemnize marriages. Vre hesi- 
tate not to say that the marriages thus contracted 
were, by the slaves themselves and their masters, 
generally regarded quite as sacred as marriages sol- 
emnized with legal license of the coui'ts; and the 
obhgations as commonly obsei-ved as among the 
same class anywhere. There were as many faithful 
husbands and wives, we believe, as are to be found 
among the working white population in any land. 

The weddings of the house-girls were usually cel- 
ebrated in the master's mansion — the bride decked 



50 Plantation Life 

for the altar by the skillful needles and elegant taste 
of the young mistresses of the household. On a 
large sugar plantation in Louisiana, owned b}'" a dis- 
tinguished Bishop of the Episcopal church, who fell 
near Marietta, Ga., fighting for the South, all the 
marriages were celebrated in the great house. The 
broad hall was decorated for the occasion with ever- 
greens and flowers, and illuminated with many lights. 
The honor coveted by the white childi'en, and given 
as the reward of good behavior, was to hold aloft the 
silver candlesticks as the good Bishop read the mar- 
riage service. If the couple had seriously misbe- 
haved, they were compelled by the master to atone 
for it by marriage; and in that case there was no dis- 
play, but the guilty pair were summoned from the 
field, and in their working clothes, in the study, 
without flowers or candles, were made husband and 
wife. 

On large sugar and cotton plantations marriages 
were not permitted with 2:)ersons off the i^lace. Even 
in such cases the choice was as wide as often falls to 
the lot of young white people living in a village com- 
munity. In our county they were permitted to marry 
wherever they chose j and their almost universal 



Before Emancipation. 51 

clioice was of husbands and vdxe^ 3 1 a distance from. 
one to fifteen miles. 

Saturday nights the roads were, in consequence, 
filled \vith men on their way to "wife house," each 
pedestrian, or horseman, beai'ing in a bag his soiled 
clothes and all the good things he could collect dui'- 
ing the week, for the delectation of his household. 
Our cook, Maum Willoughby, used laughingly to say 
that before greeting Dublin, her husband, she always 
looked to see what he had broucfht in his bair for the 

o o 

family. This practice, of course, was not very good 
for family disciphne; as the father was away from 
his child all the week, as indeed often occurs with 
white toilers even-where, and they were left entirely 
to the management of the mother. Sometime.^ it 
made trouble on the plantation when the laborer 
came late to his Monday's task. It was, perhaps, 
due to this fact that news in our county spread like a 
prairie fire. The negro on his way to his family was 
as good as what was called in the war, " the grape 
vine telegraph." 

The negro almost invariably married, and married 
young, for there were no costly preparations to be 
made, no ambition of bride for a palace to be consulted. 



52 Plantation Life 

A house was speedily erected by the plantation car- 
penter for the newly-married pair; as for food, rai- 
ment and medicine, that was the master's concern. I 
remember now but two negro bachelors, and I believe 
they only remained in single blessedness for a season. 
Of course, w^e would not hold them up as model pa- 
rents; this they were not, and only too much disposed 
to resort to blows and slaps in family matters. But 
they were neither better nor worse, perhaps, than the 
"working class of any country. 

As for the strange intimation, that violations of the 
seventh commandment w-ere no bars to church com- 
munion in Southern churches, it is simply, so far as 
my acquaintance with the subject warrants positive- 
ness of statement, notoriously and injuriously false. 
Two facts will be enough to prove this averment. In 
our county — and I supj^ose it was largely true else- 
where — the most frequent cause of suspension from 
chm'ch fellowship, and even excommunication, was 
offences against identically this commandment; 
and then, farther, while here and there, especially 
in the cities, were churches composed entirely of ne- 
groes, members and officers, such exclusive organi- 
2:ations were, as a matter of policy and safety, dis- 



Before Emancipation. 63 

couraged generally at the South. As a rule, the 
churches of the South had a mixed membership, 
white and black; and if they had a negro preacher, 
he was usually under the control of the white pas- 
tor. To insinuate, then, that violations of the seventh 
commandment were, in the South, in slavery times, 
no bars to church communion, is to charge the white 
Christians of that section with a criminal compHcity, 
which only a complete array of well-attested facts 
can redeem the author of the libel from the accusa- 
tion of a wilful bearing of false v.ituess against his 
neighbor. (Ex. xx. IG.) 



m 



CHAPTER YIII, 

'^ DADDY JACK."— A CURIOUS CHARACTER. 

I "WISH I had the genius of a Dickens, so skillful 
in portraying life among the lowly, that I might 
do justice to the odd creatm-e whose name heada 
this letter. I suppose that he must have been born 
(most people are), although I do not remember 
having ever heard of his parents. Kindred he 
seemed to have none — ^neither brother nor sister, 
imcle, aunt, nor cousin ; but he was one all to him- 
self. A glance at his face would have convinced 
you that if ever the sHghtest strain of white blood 
mingled with the African current, it must have 
effected a junction with it before the confusion of 
tongues at Tabel, when, as some ethnologists sup- 
pose, a diversity of races was miraculously pro- 
duced. Yv'hen I first recollect him, he had attained 
to middle life. 

"Daddy" — the title of respect low-country chil- 
dren of Georgia wore taught to give everj' elderly 
54 



Before Emancipation. 55 

man servant — " Daddy Jack "' was a queer negro. 
For example, he Tvas mostly a bachelor. Single 
blessedness "was so uncommon among the slaves, 
and for a reason already mentioned — the absolute 
easiness and certainty of the support of a family — 
that I now recall but two bachelors in my large ac- 
quaintance among them ; and one of these, I learned 
last summer in a visit to my native county, had 
finally siu-rendered to the charms of the other sex, 
and, I beheve, died in the yoke. Daddy Jack was a 
Benedict once, and -for a short tinue. How it hap- 
I)ened I am not able to say ; whether it was leap- 
year or not I am not advised; but "Maum Nanny," 
a widow, ensnared him. My impression is she did 
most, if not all, of the courting, and the all-prevail- 
ing argument was her ability to cook a nice pot of 
hominy, or, better still, a savory mess of rice, and 
skillfully to bake a hoe cake i 

Theii* honeymoon must have been a tempestuous 
one, for, as the negroes were accustomed to express. 
it, "they divided blankets," perhaps, before the 
next " full of the moon." Nor was this to be won- 
dered at, for he was, like Rip Van Winkk', a shift- 
less, good-natured fellow; but, unlike him, full ol 



r^6 Plantation Life 

oddities that did not minister to a wife's comfort. 
He was at once the idlest and the most industrious 
slave on the plantation ; indolent where his own in- 
terests were concerned, active where his master's 
were affected. 

I recall now the report of one of my dusky play- 
mates, of what he had just seen and heard, and in 
his lingo : " As I bin gwine long de street, and pass 
Buh Jack house, I yeddy somebody duh whistle, and 
I look in de door and I see Buh Jack a sitten on de 
jice and pullin' down de shingles to make fire wid!" 

Most of our readers have heard of the Arkansas 
iraveller, who, accosting a man playing on his fiddle 
beside the door of his ruined cabin, with the ques- 
tion, "Friend, why don't you mend 3'our roof?" re- 
ceives (the bow suspended only for a minute for the 
purpose) this answer: "When the sun shines, I don't 
need to, and when it rains I can't." Dadd}' Jack 
made the leaks with his own hand, and ran the risk 
of a wetting to insure a warming! From the same 
authorit}', I also learned that a straw hat which my 
father had given him had been used by the improv- 
ident fellow in kindling the fire. 

My father had a great fondness for him, and gave 



Before Emancipation. 57 

him two suits of clothing where the rest received one ; 
and a blanket every year, instead, as was common, 
every alternate year; but as he was unaccustomed to 
the use of thimble and needle, and generally had no 
"wife or sister to mend for him, his clothing was not 
always presentable ; his newest blanket was speedily 
in holes from a habit he had. In his room (parlor, 
chamber, and kitchen, all in one), I do not remember 
to have seen any sleeping accommodations. I doubt 
if he ever undressed and went regularly to bed ; his 
habit was to rake aside the fire coals and then spread 
his blanket upon the ashes of the hearth, where he 
could feel its grateful warmth. Whether he tempor- 
arily altered his sleeping habits upon the advent of 
his bride, we cannot say, but think it doubtful. 

I have read of some race that, by a singular incon- 
sistency, are nice about their persons, but not cleanly 
about their clothing. Oui' friend, perhaps, never 
washed his garments, and he had no female friend 
to do it for him, but he was a diligent bather. At 
midnight, in mid winter, he would divest himself of 
all his clothing, and plunge into the "calf-hole," an 
excavation made to contain water for the younger 
cattle. 



58 Pi.AXTATioN Life 

Ahnost too idle to cook liis own food, be would, as 
my plpvViuates laagliingJj said, "work all day for one 
spoonful of hominy!" I have often heard him at 
the hand-mill lon^- before I, an early riser, was up, 
grinding corn for some trilling reward. 

My father gave him, as he did the rest of the 
people, a piece of good land to cultivate in rice, of 
which he was as fond as any Chinaman, and pro- 
vided the seed; w^ell, he had to order the driver to 
flog him to make him turn up the soil ; and then he 
defeated the master's kind design by beating out 
the rice and planting his plot with the chaff. 

I never knew him to be sick for a day, and he was 
never behind-hand in his tasks, and never punished 
for idleness v/here his master's work was concerned. 

"With all. Daddy Jack was a professing Christian, 
and called himself a Presbyterian; but, as like as 
not, he had not the first conception what the word 
meant, excc2:)t that it signalized the fact that he 
once "jined" Midway Chm-ch, and not Newport, 
the Baptist, and had been sprinkled and not dipped. 
He was, no doubt, regular in attendance upon planta- 
tion prayers, and sung loudly, when not asleep, and 
sometimes when he was ; and was always in his place 



Befoee Emancipatiox. 59 

at church, especially " Sacrament Sunday." Daddy 
Jack had a profound conviction of the reality of both 
heaven and helL He was very sure two people of 
his acquaintance were bound for the better of the 
two— "Old Miss and Mass William." "He knew 
their calling and election" by this token, the gen- 
erous plates of victuals they were accustomed to 
send the faithful servant from their tables. Per- 
haps he had scriptural ground for this persuasion ; 
for was he not one of the "little ones" to whom 
"the cup of cold water," or its more valued cup of 
hot coffee, "was given in the name of a disciple," and 
one of the hungry brethren whom they had fed and 
concerning whom the Master would say, "Inas- 
much as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 

The death of my honored parents — the one scarce- 
ly disturbed in her last hours by the guns of Fort 
Sumter; the other, after a few weeks, on the next 
national anniversary, following the companion of 
fifty years' happy wedded life into the Beyond — 
caused a division of property, and Daddy Jack 
passed to one of my married sisters in the same 
count}'. 



60 Plantation Life 

The war went on, and I removed to a distant part 
of the State, and after it to Louisiana, and so I lost 
sight of Daddy Jack for a time, but I hope some day 
to meet the dear old shiftless, good-natured, harm- 
less fellow in the better land, where all that was 
defective in his organization and character will have 
been removed. 

Kecently I heard a colored bishop of the Metho- 
dist Church exclaim, in an earnest address : " Some 
ask, *will we have the same color in heaven we 
have had on earth ? ' This I do not care to know ; 
all I wish is to make sure of getting there, and not 
being barely saved, but going 'sweeping through 
the gates.' " 

"We cannot tell what changes will be effected at 
the resurrection in the bodies of the saved; but 
some of the whitest souls I have ever known dwelt 
in the blackest of skins ! Perhaps, and if some com- 
mentators are correct, certainly, if color, as well a& 
servitude, was a part of the cm'se denounced upon 
Canaan for the sin of Ham, it will be changed. But 
this we do know, that nothing will sever the chain 
of holy love which in heaven will forever bind heart 
to heart, and all to the God of love; for hear the 



Before Emancipation. 61 

beloved Johu: "After this I beheld, and lo! a great 
multitude, 'whom no man could number, of all na- 
tions and kindreds and tongues, stood before the 
throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white 
robes, and palms in their hands." And to him the 
angel makes answer concerning them: "These are 
they which came out of great tribulation, and have 
washed their robes and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb." 



CHAPTEB IX. 

FOLK LORE OF THE NEGRO. 

TjlOLK lore, transmitted orallj from sire to son, 
J- constituted the only literature of the negro 
slave, who, as a rule, was unacquainted with the 
alphabet of his master. 

Here I hope I may be permitted, in accord mce 
with the general spirit and tenor of these letters, 
which are designedly and largely the testimony of 
one who narrates what he has seen and heard, to 
recall some childhood experiences. Before we were 
considered old enough to attend evening religious 
services, we children were left at home in charge of 
the house servants, who were accustomed to enter- 
tain us by the relation of negro fables. 

Not a few Southern writers, notably our own 
Ruth McEnery Stuart, have, in the Held of fiction, 
correctly portrayed both negro character and dia- 
lect; the author named, with a pathos and sympa- 
thy with her lowly subjects, which often exacts from 
62 



Plantation Life GJ 

those who knew the negro before emancipation the 
involuntary tribute of tears ; but only two of them 
have wrought in the rich field of the negro folk 
lore — Joel Chandler Harris and Charles C. Jones, 
Jr. The fables related by these last mentioned 
writers were, in the main, those recounted at the 
planter's fireside to the never weary youthful audi- 
tors. ^Yith Joel Chandler Harris's recitals, the 
thousands of the readers of the Century have been 
made familiar in the narratives of " Uncle Eemus ; " 
not so many have perused the account of them in a 
little book from the press of Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co., entitled, ''Negro 3Iyths from the Georgia 
Coast, told in the vernacular" by Charles C. Jones, 
Jr., LL. D. Reared in the same community with 
the latter author, I desire to testify to its literal ac- 
curacy in story and dialect. There is not a particle 
of fiction in either. I learned from him that they 
were taken dow^n from the lips of old negroes in 
Liberty county, Ga. The dedication of this little 
volume is characteristic, but will be no surprise to 
those who had any knowledge of domestic ser- 
vice in the South before emancipation : " La memory 
of Monte Video Plantation, and of the family ser- 



CI Plantation Life 

vants, ^vhose fidelity and affection contributed so 
materially to its comfort and happiness." 

Let me again bear my testimony' as one who was, 
by marriage, a frequent visitor, and for weeks at 
a time, a fortunate resident beneath the roof which 
sheltered the " Apostle to the blacks,' and the au- 
thor who, as his eldest born, bears his father's hon- 
ored name, in one of those typical Southern homes, 
in which pohsh and culture were combined with 
piety, to the fact that these family servants were all 
that the dedication of their once young master por- 
trays them to have been. 

Between these stories vi two authors, there is, as 
might have been expected, some sameness, as they 
were conscientious workers in the same general 
field; but a perceptible variation in their versions 
and dialect, due to the fact that they wrought in 
different parts of it — Mr. Harris giving tlie dialect 
and folk lore of the negroes of middle Georgia, and 
Mr. Jones those of the negroes of the coasts of 
Georgia and of South Carolina. 

As the seaboard was first settled and supplied 
with African labor, it is evident that the fables pre- 
served a; 1(1 recorded by the latter author have tho 



Before Emancipation. 65 

preference as the originals. I have, in my partial 
investigations, been astonished to find how far these 
fables have spread into the interior, and how, with 
natural and, in some instances, most amusing varia- 
tions, thev have been transmitted by tradition with 
substantial correctness. President George J. Ramsey, 
of SiUiman Collegiate Institute, Clinton, La., tells me 
t jat in the last years cf the war, he, as a child, heard 
"Uncle Remus'" fables in. East Yii'ginia; and our 
servant man, who was a Federal soldier in the war, 
gives me substantially the story of the Tar Baby at 
the Well, as told in Xegro 3Iyths, but with a laugh- 
able variation in its ending — perhaps a Louisianar 
addition. 

I will now, from the fifty-seven originals col- 
lected by Charles C. Jones, Jr., give two speci- 
mens: 

BuH Squiele and Euh Fox. 

Buh Squirle bin berry busy dull gedder hickry 
nut on de groun f uh pit away fuh feed heself and eh 
fambly der winter time. Buh Fox bin er watch um, 
and befo Bull Squirle shum, eh shp up an graff um. 
i5uh Squirle eh d-it skaid eh trimble all ober, an eh. 
4 



GG Plantation Life 

bague Bull Fox let um go, Biih Fox tell um, say, 
eh bin er try iuh. ketcli em long time, but he hah 
sich sharpe yeye, an keen yez, an spry leg, eh man- 
age f uh dodge um ; an now wen he got um at las, eh 
mean to f uh kill um an eat um. Wen Buh Squirle 
:find out dat Bah Fox yent bin gwine pity um an tun 
um loose, but dat eh fix fuh kill um and eat um, Buh 
Squirle say to Buh Fox : "Enty jou know say, no- 
l)ody ought to eat eh bittle befo eh say grace ober 
umf Buh Fox him mek answer: "Dat so;" and 
Mid dat, eh pit Buh Squirle een front er um, an he 
fall on he knee, an kibber eh yeye wid eh han, an eh 
tun een fuh say grace. 

While Buh Fox bin do dis, Buh Squirlo manage 
for slip way ; an wen Buh Fox open eh yeye, eh see 
Buh Bquirle duh run up de tree way him couldn't 
tetch him. 

Buh Fox fine eh couldn't help ehself, an eh call 
arter Buh Squirle, an he say: "Nummine boy, you 
done git way now, but de nex time me clap dis han 
toppc r you, me giune eat you fus and say grace arter- 
ward." 

Best plan fuh er man fuh mek sho er eh bittle 
befo eh say tenkey fur um ! 



Before Emancipation. 67 

BuH "Wolf, Buh Babbit, an de Tar Baby. 

Bull "Wolf and Bull Rabbit biu nabur. De dr - 
drout come. Ebrj ting stew up. "Water scace. Bull 
^olf dig one spring full git water. Bull Babbit liirn 
too lazy an too scLemy full wuk full isself. Eli pen 
pon lib off tarruh people. Ebry day Avlien Buh Wolf 
yent duh watch um, eh slij) to Buh "^"olf spring, au 
eh fill him calabash long water, an cah um to eh 
house fuh cook long and fuh di'ink. Buh "Wolf seo 
Buh Babbit track, but eh couldn't ketch um duh tief 
de water. 

One day eh meet Buh Babbit in de big road, an 
ax um, how eh mek out fuh water. Buh Babbit say : 
"Him no casion fuh hunt water; him lib off de jew 
en de grass." Buh "Wolf quire : " Enty yuh blan tek 
water outer my spring?" Buh Babbit say: "Me 
yent." Buh "Wolf say: "You yis, enty me see j'ou 
track ?" Buh Babbit mek answer : " Tent me gwine 
to your spring, mus be some udder rabbit; me 
nebber been nigh you spring; me dunno way you 
spring day." 

Buh "Vi'olf no question um no more ; but eh know 
say eh bin Buh Babbit fuh true, an eh fix plan fuh 
ketch um. 



68 Plais'tation Life 

De same ebenin, eli mek tar babj, an eli guine an 
set iim riglit in de middle er de trail wuli lead ter de 
spring an dust in front er de spring. 

Soon a mornin, Buh Rabbit rise and tun in fiih 
cook lie bittle. Eh j)ot biggin full bun. Buh Eab- 
bit say: "Hej! my pot dull bun. Lemme slip to 
Bub Wolf spring an git some water fub cool um." 
So be tek eb calabash and bop off fuh de spring. 
When eh ketch de spring, eh see de tar baby dub 
stan dust een front er de spring. Eh stonish. 
Eh stop. Eh come close. Eh look at um. Eh 
wait fur um fuh move. De tar baby yent notice 
um. Eh yent wink eh yeye. Eh yent say nuttin. 
Eh yent mobe. Buh Babbit, him say: " Hey, Titer, 
enty you gwine tan one side and lemme get some 
water?" De tar baby no answer. Den Buh Bab- 
bit say: "Leely gal, mobe, me tell you, so me kin 
dip some water outer de spring long my calabash." 
De tar baby wunt move. Buh Babbit say: "Enty 
to know my pot dub bun? Enty you yeddy, me tell 
you fuh mobe? You see dis ban? Ef you don't go 
long an lemme git some water, me guine slap you 
ober ! " De tar baby stan day. Buh Babbit haul 
off an slap um side de head. Eh f astne. Buh Bab- 



Before Emancipation. 69 

bit try full pull eli hfin back, an eh say : '•' V»*nh you 
bole me ban fub? Lemme go. Ef yoii don't loose 
me, me guine box de Hfe outer you wid dis taiTah 
ban." De tar baby yent crack eb teet. Bub Bab- 
bit bit bim bim wid dis tarrab ban. Dat ban fastne 
too, same luk tudder. Bub Babbit say: "Wub you 
up teb? Tun me loose. Ef you don't leggo me 
rigbt off, me guine knee you." De tar baby bole 
um fast. Bub Babbit skade an bex too. Eb faid 
Bub Wolf come ketcb um. Wen eb fine eb can't 
loosne eb ban, eb kick de tar baby wid eb knee. 
Eb knee fastne. Yub de big trouble now. Bub 
Babbit skade den wus dan nebber. Eb try to f ub 
skade de tar baby. Eb say: "Leely gal, you bet- 
ter mine who you fool long. Me tell you fub de las 
time, turn me loose ! Ef you don't loosne me ban and 
me knee rigbt off, we guine bust you wide open 
wid dis bead." De tar baby bole um fas. Eb yent 
say one wud. Den Bub Babbit butt de tar baby 
een eb face. Eb bead fastne same fasbion luk eb 
ban an eb knee. Yub de ting now ! Po Bub Bab- 
bit dune for ! Eb fastne all side. Eb can't pull loose. 
Eb gib up. Eb bague. Eb cry. Eb boiler. Bub 
Wolf yeddy um. Eb run day. Eb bail Bub Bab- 



70 Plantation Life 

bit: "Hey, Budcler, ^Yull de trouble? Enty you tell 
me you no blan wisit my spring fuh git water? 
Who calabash dis! Wuh you duh do you any- 
how?" But Buh Babbit, so condemn, he yent hab 
one wud fuh talk. Buh Wolf him say: "Nummine, 
I dune ketch you dis day. I guine lick 3'ou now ! " 
Buh Babbit bague. Eh prommus nebber fuh trou- 
ble Buh Wolf spring no more. Buh Yv'olf laugh at 
um. Ben he tek an lose Buh Babbit from de tar 
baby, en eh tie um teh one spakleberrj- bush, an git 
switch an eh lick um til eh tired. All de time Buh 
Babbit bin a bague an holler. Buh Wolf jent dull 
listne ter him, but eh keej) on duh pit de lick ter um. 
At last Buh Babbitt teU Buh Wolf: "Don't lick me 
no mo. Kill me one time. Make fire and burn me 
up. Knock my brains out gin de tree !" Buh Wolf 
mek answer: "Ef I bun you up, ef I knock you 
brains out, you guine dead too quick. Me guine 
trow you in de brier patch, so de briers can cratch 
3'ou life out." Buh Babbit say: "Do, Buh Wolf, 
bun me, brake me neck, but don't trow me in de 
brier patch. Lemme dead one time. Don't tarrify 
me no mo." 

Buh Wolf 3'ent know wuh Buh Babbit up teh. 



Before Emancipation. 71 

Eh tint ell bin tare Bull Babbit hide off. So wuh 
eh do ? Eh loose Buh Babbit from the spakleberiy 
bush, and eh tek um by de hine leg an eh swing um 
roiin, an trow um way in de tick brier patch fuh tare 
eh hide, and scratch eh yeye out. De minnie Buh 
Babbit drap in de brier patch, eh cock up eh tail, 
eh jump, an holler back to Buh Wolf : " Good bye, 
budder ! Dis de place me mammy fotch me up! " 
and eh gone befo Buh Wolf kin ketch um. Buh 
Babbit too schemy. 

The first of these fables, in the raciness of its 
wit, equals anything in J^sop. 

To the other, oui' Louisiana negro man con- 
tributes this amusmg yariation as its close, which 
also illustrates the " scheminess " of Buh Babbit : 

*' Buh Bear comes along and finds Buh Babbit in 
the inyoluntaiy embrace of * the leely gal,' the tar 
baby, and inquires as follows : ' Hey ! Buh Babbit„ 
wat you duh da ? ' Says Buh Babbit, mo\dng to 
and fro as far as his imprisoned members will ad- 
mit : ' Oh, I duh see-saw ; wouldn't you like to see- 
saw, Buh Bear ? ' ' Yes,' says Buh Bear, in his in- 
nocence. 'Well, pull me off and you git on.' BuJi 
Babbit released, Bruin takes his place ; and while 



72 Plantation Life 

stuck fast is taken for the thief. Bah Rabbit takes 
himself off; and Buh Wolf beats Buh Bear almost 
to death ! " 

These stories are almost entirely and purely fa- 
bles — that is, narratives in which animals are en- 
dowed with speech; only to a very limited degree 
do human beings figure in them. They are never, 
except in the remotest sense, religious, and seldom, 
if ever, rise above the level of the ethics of Benjamin 
Frankhn's proverbs. If any criticism is proper 
from a moral standpoint, I should say that they, or 
some of them, glorify cunning and falsehood at the 
expense of honesty and truth, but in such a way 
that we cannot but laugh at the story, while we 
withhold our admiration from its teachings. It is 
also a curious fact that (for what reason we are at a 
loss to say) the Rabbit is the embodiment of smart- 
ness, and not the Fox, the Anglo-Saxon's model of 
cunning, and who, by the way, in the story quoted, 
is outwitted by the Squirrel. 

The literary world is greatly indebted to the two 
Georgia authors named, for rescuing from the in- 
coming tide of oblivion, which is fast obliterating 
all that was peculiar in the past civilization of a peo- 



Before Emancipation. 73 

pie who were the innocent cause of the bloodiest 
and most transforming war of modem times. For, 
strange to say, and I now speak from the testimony 
of the author of " The Negro Myths," who foimd 
much reluctance in communicating them, and from 
my own observation in the case of a negro woman 
whom I had raised, that not only are the new ideas 
engendered by freedom supplanting this folk lore, 
but the rehgion as now taught among them by their 
colored preachers is setting itself against their nar- 
ration as sinful. They did not perceptibly harm 
the morals of Southern children, black or white, 
and were infinitely preferable to the blood-curdling 
ghost stories with which some nurses terrify the 
young in our day. They are certainly, in the mat- 
ter of injurious influence, not to be compared to the 
dime novels, to which the almost universal acquisi- 
tion of the art of reading gives our young Africans 
unrestricted access. 



CHAPTEK X. 

OLD MIDWAY— A TYPICAL CHURCH. 

IT was remarked in a previous letter that the 
Southern churches, with a few exceptions, had a 
mixed membership ; that is, were composed of whites 
and blacks, the whole being under the government of 
the former. In this respect, the Midway chui'ch was 
a typical church. It had a membership of perhaps 
five hundred, about three-fourths of whom were 
negroes. 

The church edifice, which was situated in Liberty, 
one of the seaboard counties of Georgia, thirty miles 
southwest of Savannah, was called "Midway," be- 
cause equidistant between the two great rivers — the 
Savannah and the Alatamaha. It was central to a 
very lich but malarial region, whose original growth 
was cane, oak, hickory and cypress. 

Bearing in colonial times the name of " St. John's 
Parish," the county received by legislative enactment, 
shortly after the Revolution, the honorable title of 
74 



Plantation Life. 75 

"Liberty," in commemoration of its plucky conduct 
in taking decided measures to join the other colo- 
nies in their revolt, when the Provincial Council of 
Georgia had refused to unite with them! It is a 
remarkable and noteworthy fact, that a county 
which perhaps never had more than between two or 
three thousand whites, had thus the honor of contri- 
buting two signatures to that immortal document, 
the Declaration of Independence — Lyman Hall and 
Button Gwinnett. 

Made rudely acquainted in earlier times with the 
torch and tomahawk of the savage, it was her des- 
tiny in the Revolution, as more recently in our civil 
war, to know the baptism of fire and blood. Col. 
Prevost, of the British Army, burned the rice in 
stacks, and some of the houses of the planters, and 
reduced to ashes the sacred edifice in which they 
had worshiped the God of their fathers. General 
Screven was killed not far from the church site. 
Col. Mcintosh, one of her gallant sons, who com- 
manded the small earthen redoubt protecting her 
flourishing little seaport of Sunbuiy, at the mouth 
of the Midway, to the demand of Col. Fuser, of 
unconditional suiTender, retui'ned the laconic reply: 



?6 Plantation Life 

*' Come and take it ! " — an invitation finally and pru- 
dently declined by the commander of his Majesty's 
forces ? When Washington visited Georgia in 1791, 
the "Congregational Church and Society at Mid- 
way'* presented to him a j)atriotic address, to which 
the Father of his Coimtry made a fitting and hand- 
some reply. 

This early and ardent espousal of the cause of 
the revolting colonies by the church and society of 
Midway is, perhaps, to be accounted for by the nat- 
urally stron gties which still bound them to New 
England. Their ancestors came from Britain to 
secure liberty of worship, and first settled not far 
from what is now the city of Boston, at an Indian 
town, which, in honor of the native place of some of 
the settlers, and of a cherished minister, they called 
Dorchester. Sixty years afterwards their descend- 
ants, largely influenced by religious motives, moved 
as a church, with their pastor, Rev, Joseph Lord, a 
Congregational minister, to South Carolina, and set- 
tled on the Ashley river, about eighteen miles above 
Charleston. This settlement they also called Dor- 
chester. After a residence of more than fifty years, 
finding theu' lands impoverished and insufficient for 



Befoee Emancipation. 77 

themselves and descendants, and somewhat discour- 
aged by their continued unhealthiness, they again 
emigrated in a body, under their pastor and offi- 
cers, to Georgia, and effected a settlement in a dis- 
trict at the headwaters of the Midway and New- 
port rivers, two short tide-water streams, draining 
w-hat is now known as Liberty county. . Coming to 
tnis wild country as a church, they secui-ed from 
the colonial government a large tract of land, com- 
pactly situated; and by articles of dgTeement the 
colonists pledged themselves not to ahenate any of 
their land to outsiders, save with the unanimous 
consent of the society. They speedily built a neat 
church, or "meeting-house," as it is called in the 
records, " at the cross-paths," at a point central to 
the settlement. Their first pastor at least was a 
Congregational minister, and the government of the 
chiu'ch somewhat peculiar. It was not purely Con- 
gregational ; for the control of church matters was 
not in the hands of the whole society, but of a ses- 
sion, composed of all the male members, without 
respect to age. Their officers were deacons and a 
body of " select men " as they were called. Every 
year the church went throu^-h the routine of elect- 



78 Plantation Life 

ing a pastor. Eetaining this nondescript form of 
cliurcli government down to our late war, the church 
has from early times been served by Presbyterian 
ministers only, and its members have always re- 
garded themselves as Presbyterians. 

Puritan by ancestry, they were a pre-eminently 
godly people; first in their estimation was the 
church, and next the school-house. The Sabbath 
was strictly observed. One of the church officers 
was also justice of the peace. Should some traveler 
attempt to pass on the Lord's day with his wagons 
and teams on the public highway, running b}^ the 
church, he was by this zealous administrator of 
law, human and divine, peremptorily halted; but 
then taken home with him and freely and most hos- 
pitably entertained, he and his beasts, and on Monday 
sent on his way rejoicing, with a heai'ty Godspeed ! 

The Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism 
was diligently taught in all its famihes. Celebrat- 
ing some time before the late war its centennial, 
this remarkable church (not to exhaust the roll-call 
of its worthies) has fiu-nished more than one theo- 
logical professor, such as Piev. Drs. Thomas Gold- 
ing and C. C. Jones; forty ministers of the gospel, 



Before Emancipation. 79 

not a few of Vvhom have been eminent for their 
talents and piety, for example, Eev. Dr. Daniel Baker ; 
a number of distinguished physicians and college 
professors, not a few of them known in the scientific 
world, as for instance. Dr. Joseph Jones, of New 
Orleans, and the brothers Le Conte, of California. 
It has given eminent men to the bar, such as Judge 
Law, late of Savannah, Col. C. C. Jones, Jr., LL. D., 
of Augusta, Ga., and others; it has supplied teach- 
ers by !he hundred, and has trained (only the judg- 
ment can reveal how many) a multitude of saved 
sinners for heaven, and by her liberal gifts of means 
and of men, like Way and Quarterman, to foreign 
missions, has helped to extend the kingdom of our 
Lord and Saviour in the world. 

The war wrote "Finis" on the last page of this 
remarkable and honorable history. The changed 
relations of master and servant have consohdated 
the blacks in this region, and scattered the whites 
into the remoter and healthier parts of the county. 
A colored Presbyterian church, under a white pas- 
tor, and in connection with the Northern Assembly, 
are now the only worshipers in the sacred edifice — 
built in 1790. It is now, by permission of the de- 



80 Plantation Life. 

scendants of the -white members, used by the ne- 
groes, upon the easy terms of keeping in good order 
the adjacent graveyard," in which repose the ashes 
of four or five godly generations. It is a church 
vnth a finished history ! But as her sons and 
daughters, inheriting the sterling piety of their 
fathers, gather annually upon this hallowed ground 
to lovingly commemorate the historic past, they 
illustrate in their own persons, characters, and cele- 
bration, the blessed fact that the gracious influences 
set in motion by an earnest Christian church, con- 
tinue even when, in the providence of God, it, as an 
organization, has become extinct. 

And the history of this venerable chui'ch, so 
briefly sketched by one of her loyal and loving sons, 
it seems to him, is but a providential comment upon 
those sweet words of Moses : " Know, therefore, 
that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, 
which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that 
love hhn andTcee}') his commandinents, to a tho'tsand 
generations.'^ (Deut. vii. 9.) 

In our next letter we shall attempt to draw from 
memory a picture of ''Sacrament Sunday in old 
Midway church." 



CHAPTER XL 

SAGRAMEIs'T SUXDAY AT OLD MIDWAY, 

" rpHE sacraments of the New Testament are Baj>- 
X tism and the Lord's Supper," says the Shorter 
Catechism, which contains in brief the creed of this 
ancient church, and which was diligently taught 
their children. Both were commonly administered 
on communion Sabbath, for seldom did the day 
pass without numerous additions of white and 
black, the latter almost invariably receiving adult 
baptism. But it is probable that it was the Sup- 
per that was mostly in the mind of our forefathers, 
■when they called communion Sabbath, occurring 
four times every year, " Sacrament Sunday." 

It was a gTeat day with both white and black, 
and anticipated with joy by the pious, and interest 
by all. There was a pecuhar quiet about the morn- 
ing of the sacred day on the plantation. All the 
sounds of the busy week have ceased; the noisy 
rattle of the chain of the horse gin is silent, the 
3 81 



82 Plantation Life 

flails in the barnyard are still; few loud calls are 
heard about the quarters; the negroes are seen 
sitting on the sunny sides of their houses, mothers 
with their children's heads in their laps, carrying 
on in public an operation better suited for in-door 
privacy; no sounds are heard but the lowing of the 
cattle, the whinnying of the horses, the crowing of 
the cocks and cackling of the hens; the gobbling 
of the turkeys; the shrill cries of the geese; the 
winds appear to be asleep, and the veiy sunshine 
seems to fall more gently than during the week 
upon the widely extended fields and surrounding 
woods ! 

Our honored father, a deacon of the church, sits 
by the window, and with a knife carefully sharpened 
the day before divides upon a clean white board the 
wheaten loaves into little cubes of bread, and the 
"elements," as they are called, together with the 
genuine silver goblets and silver tankards and silver 
baskets, previously polished by the deft hands of 
the house girl, with the httle contribution boxes for 
the offering in aid of the poor, are all safely packed 
away in a wide basket. 

Prayers and breakfast over, the family dress for 



Before EiL\NciPATioN. 83 

church ; and now the order is sent out to the stable 
boys and the carnage driver to " harness up; " and 
directly the high-pitched carriage, with its lofty 
^river's seat and swinging between its *'C" springs, 
and the two-wheeled "top-gig" and the saddle 
horses are brought around to the front gate; and 
although it is scarcely more than nine o'clock, and 
the distance "a short mile," the entire family, as 
was the custom, ride to chui'ch. As we roll along^ 
the broad highway, we find the servants clean and 
neatly dressed and in their best, some on foot and 
others in Jersey wagons, crowded to their utmost 
capacity with little and big, and drawn by "Marsh 
Tackey's," equal in bottom and strength to, and no 
larger than, Texas ponies — all moving in the same 
direction; those on foot canying their shoes and 
stockings in their hands, to be resumed after they 
shall have washed in the waters at the causeway 
near the chui'ch; for they beheve in treading the 
Lord's courts with clean feet! Many are the kind 
gi'eetings and mutual inquiries after the health of 
each other and of theii* famihes, exchanged by 
whites and blacks. 

We are among the first to arrive, but every 



84 Plantation Life 

moment we hear the thunder of vehicles rolling 
across the half dozen bridges of the swamp cause- 
way near at hand, and the neighing of horses ; and 
here come the multitude, from distances of from 
one to ten miles and more. Horses are unharnessed 
and secured, and the worshipers fill the small 
houses surrounding the church, or stand in the sun- 
shine, or saunter about the grounds, or visit the 
" graveyard." 

Under my father's superintendence, the long nar- 
row red-painted tables and benches are brought out 
fi'om the vestry and carried into the church, and 
arranged in the aisle before the pulpit. The church 
building, 40x60 feet in size, is very ancient; it 
was built in 1790; it is the successor of one de- 
stroyed by the British, and of a plainer and coarser 
put up after the Revolution. It is of wood, origi- 
nally painted red, the old color showing beneath the 
later white, and is sumounted by a spire, with open 
belfry and a weather vane, which used to puzzle 
our child brains to ascertain what it was intended 
to represent. It has five entrances, two of which 
admit to the gallery. Passing in by the door, open- 
ing upon the graveyard, and near which was our 



Before Emancipation. 85 

family jdgw, we look up a broad aisle to the pulpit, 
which., small and closely walled in, soars aloft toward 
the ceiling-, and is surmounted by a sounding board, 
like a gigantic candle extinguisher, supported by an 
iron rod, the possible breaking of which often 
aroused our infantile speculations as to what, in that 
event, would become of the preacher! It was 
reached by a lofty stairwa}' running up in front. 
At right angles to our aisle runs another as broad, 
connecting the two other doors. Aisles run around 
the sides of the audience room, and the pews are so 
arranged that everybody seems to be facing every- 
body else! A wide gallery extends around throe 
sides, resounding often "udth the creaking of new 
brogans, which the black wearers were not at all 
disposed to suppress. The communion table and 
benches reach the entire length of the broad aisle to 
the pulpit ; the whole covered with the whitest and 
finest of linen (our mother's special care). A cloth 
of the same kind conceals from view at its head the 
sacred symbols of our Lord's atoning death. There 
is above a single row of sashed -v^dndows, out of 
reach, and transoms over the solid shutters of the 
windows below; but not a sign of a stove in the 



86 Plantation Life . 

churcli, although the air sometimes is frosty, and 
the shut up atmosphere occasionally of the tempera- 
ture of the vaults in the cemetery hard by. And 
brides in the olden time, in mid-winter, came to 
these services clad in muslin, with only the protec- 
tion of a shawl, and in paper-soled slippers, laced 
up Ihe ankles. Why there never was any way of 
warming the church I never knew, nor heard ex- 
plained. Doubtless some caught their death of the 
cold, which often made us children shiver and long 
for the benediction which would dismiss us to the 
sunny sides of the houses without or to their fires 
within. It was not, however, ordinarily bitterly cold, 
for the winters were for the most part mild. 

All things having been prepared, there is a half- 
hour's prayer-meeting, attended by such worship- 
ers as have arrived early. 

At eleven o'clock the regular communion service 
begins, with an invocation from one of the pastors ; 
for we always had two. An earnest, well-written, 
often eloquent, always solemn, sermon is preached 
from a manuscript, either by the venerable Eev. 
Robert Quarter man, long since gone to his reward, 
or his young and handsome coadjutor, Eev. I. S. K. 



Before Emancipation. 87 

Axson, now living in Georgia, a feeble old man;* the 
long list of names of members received at a meet- 
ing of Session two weeks before, and " propounded " 
the Sunday preceding, is read again, and white and 
black candidates advance together, the last mar- 
shalled by the colored preacher, Toney Stevens, a 
slave. The candidates for baptism kneel and re- 
ceive from the marble font, at which all, white and 
black, infant and adult, are baptized, the sacred 
sign of God's covenant love. The new members 
dismissed to their seats, one of the pastors gives 
out the h}Tnn of institution (none other was ever 
sung), " 'Twas on that dark, that doleful night ; " 
during the singing of it the communicants fill the 
seats at the long tables and adjacent pews; the 
non-professors among the blacks have not been ad- 
mitted to the galleries above, as there is not room. 
After the consecrating prayer, a tender address is 
made, and first the bread is distributed in the same 
silver baskets and at the same time, to all the com- 
municants, white and black, below and above; an- 
other address, and the wine is passed around by 
the deacons, my venerated sii'e one of them. The 

Since deceased. 



88 Plantation Lifs 

number of black communicants is so large, that 
Toney Stevens comes down from tlie gallery to re- 
plenish the gold-lined silver goblets from the basket 
of wine in bottles near the pulpit; and as the wine 
is poured out, its gurgling in the solemn silence 
smites distinctly upon our young ears, and the 
■whole house is filled with the aroma of the j^ure 
imported Madeii'a. Communicants overlooked in 
the distribution of the "elements " are asked to sig- 
nify the fact by raising the right hand ; and if any 
have been passed by (which never occm-red), they 
wdll be waited upon. AVe children, awed and 
almost frightened spectators, look on from our pews 
upon the solemnities, which suggest sad thoughts of 
a possible separation wdiich the judgment may, like 
the communion table, make between us and our be- 
loved parents ! 

A prayer, doxology and benediction close the sol- 
emn and impressive service — solemn and impressive 
it seems to me upon the review, as nowhere elsef. 

We refresh ourselves in the hour's intermission 
from the abundant "cold snacks," we called them, 
or lunches ; sun ourselves, and walk down the road 
or in the graveyard. Immediately at the close of 



Before Emancipation. 89 

the communion service a great volume of musical 
sound, mellowed by the distance, comes up from 
the African church, in the edge of the forest, where 
godly Toney Stevens, the carpenter, is about to 
hold forth ^o his dusky charge. I have heard more 
artistic singing, but never heartier or more worship- 
ful elsewhere. 

But the bell, whose iron tongue, to our young 
imaginations, was endowed literally with speech, 
is saying, "Come along! come along!" Another 
sermon is preached, and horses are found harnessed 
and vehicles ready, and the mighty congregation 
disperse to their several homes. The sun is low in 
the western horizon when we arrive at our planta- 
tion home and sit down to a late dinner. Sunday 
clothes are folded up and put away, and the easier 
fitting every-day garments and old shoes are, to our 
immense relief, once more put on. A Sunday-school 
for the young people of the plantation, conducted in 
a spare room of our house by one of my sisters, in 
which hymns are memorized and sung, and Dr. C. 
C. Jones' Catechism taught, closes the j)ublic reli- 
gious services of the day. After supper and prayers, 
tired, we all retire to our early couches ; but refreshed 



90 Plantation Life. 

by the rest, duties and worship of God's hallowed 
day, and ready on the morrow to take up with new 
courage and energy the tasks and burdens of secu- 
lar life. 

Such is a picture of a "Sacrament Sunday in old 
Midwa}^" as it comes back to me, like "memories 
of joys that are departed, pleasant but mournful to 
the soul." 

By such days of resting and of holy convocation 
were masters and servants, realizing even on earth 
the communion of saints, fitted for the same blessed 
home, in which multitudes of them have long since 
met, to keep an eternal celebration of their common 
deliverance from the bonds of sin and death and 
hell, and investment with the spiritual liberty where- 
with Christ maketh his people free ! 

Blessed be the God of my fathers, that my early 
life was shaped by such influences ! May they abide 
with all the sons and daughters of old Midway for 
ever ! 



CHAPTEK XIL 

A MISSIONARY TO THE BLACKS— A SKETCH 
OF HIS LIFE. 

I RECALL now a quarrel with a sister a little 
older tlian myself, my constant playmate. It 
was about a fancied resemblance to a preacher. She 
had roached up her short-cut hair before the glass 
up stairs, and asserted that she looked like Dr. Jones. 
I, on the contrary, disputing the statement and claim- 
ing the exclusive honor of resemblance, a contro- 
versy arose, whose settlement, owing to the outcry 
raised, was adjourned to our mother's room. How 
it was finally adjusted in that child's court of final 
appeal is not remembered now ; but the incident is 
quoted to show in what high esteem the children of 
the planter's household held one who gave his life 
to the evangelization of the negro. 

The first distinct remembrance of him and his of 
me, as he told me in after years, was as follows: 

"With that mania for destroying animal life which, 
91 



92 Plantation Lite 

at some period, seems to take possession of boys, I 
"was engaged in the evening twilight in sla^-ing, with 
a long fishing pole, the bats which, in incredible 
number, come out upon their nightly foraging ex- 
peditions from the crevices in the frame work of the 
horse gin. I heard a horse's footfalls and looked 
up, and the missionaiy to the blacks, meeting an 
appointment sent on to my father, rode by on his 
way to the quarters with a pleasant greeting and 
inquiry as to the nature of my employment; and 
without perhaps what might have been an apposite 
lecture upon "cruelty to animals." It was Rev. 
Charles Colcock Jones. 

Allow a loving hand to sketch briefly the life of 
one of the noblest men God ever made by his crea- 
tive skill and regenerating grace; and with whom, 
to the unspeakable profit of his piety and ministry, 
he was permitted, as a member of his family, to be 
associated in the forming period of both. I con- 
dense from a full biographical sketch prepared by 
myself, and published in Tlie Dead of the Synod of 
Georgia, by Rev. Dr. J. S. Wilson, then of Atlanta, 
Ga. 

Charles Colcock Jones, the son of Captain John 



Before Em:ancipation. 93 

Jones aud Susannali Hjrn Jones, was born at Lib- 
erty Hall, his father's plantation residence, in Lib- 
erty county, Ga., December 20th, 1804, and was 
baptized in Midway Church by Rev. Cyrus Gilder- 
sleeve. Upon the death of his father, while he was 
still an infant, the sole care of him was devolved 
upon his mother, who, of Huguenot descent, was a 
woman of great excellence of character and sterling 
piety, and, hke Hannah of old, consecrated her son 
to the ministry. 

Again bereaved in his fifth year, he was reared 
by his imcle. Captain Joseph Jones, who, although 
not at the time a professing Christian, did by the 
orphan a father's part so nobly as to win his ever- 
lasting gTatitude, filial affection, and obedience. 

Pieceiving an excellent common school education 
at Sunbury, under a noted teacher of the day, Eev. 
Dr. William McWir, he, at the early age of four- 
teen, entered and continued in a counting-room in 
the city of Savannah six years — a business experi- 
ence of signal ser\dce to him in after years. While 
thus employed, the young clerk spent his evening 
hours in historical studies and in the mastery of 
Edwards' abstruse treatise on " Tlie Will." And 



94 Plantation Life 

such was his industry, system and integrity, that at 
the close of his novitiate he could have commanded, 
it was said, any position in mercantile Hfe in that 
city. Bat it was not the Lord's will that the clerk 
should become the merchant. A dangerous sick- 
ness, bringing him to the ver;^e of the grave, was 
the instrument in God's hands of his awakening 
and conversion; and at the age of seventeen he 
connected himself with his ancestral church at Mid- 
way, by whose pastor, Rev. Mr. Murphy, his mind 
was first turned toward the gospel ministry. 

Owing, perhaps, to the frequent visits of the ven- 
erable Dr. Ebenezer Porter, of Andover, to his na- 
tive county, he went North and entered himself as 
a student in the noted Phillips Academy, and sub- 
sequently in the Seminary in that place. Here, for the 
first time, although now twenty years old, he took 
in hand his Latin grammar. Three years and a 
half were spent in his literary and theological stu- 
dies in these famous institutions. With the presi- 
dent. Dr. Porter, he wa?! upon the most intimate 
terms ; and he has been heard to say that, visiting 
him at aU hours, there was not one in which, at 
some time, he had not found this godly man upon 
his kneea ', 



Before Emancipation. 95 

.om Andover he -went to Princeton, then under 
Drs. Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller, and 
after eighteen months' study in that noble school of 
the prophets, he was licensed to preach by the Pres- 
bytery of New Brunswick. In November, 1830, he 
was united in marriage to his cousin, Miss Mary 
Jones, a woman of decided piety and uncommon 
strength of intellect and character, who was always 
in fullest sympathy with him in his intellectual pur- 
suits and his missionary labors. Preaching for a 
period of four or five mouths m his native county as 
opportunity offered, in 1831 he became stated sup- 
ply of the Fu'st Presbyterian Church of Savannah 
Ga., and was, after a short term of ministerial labor, 
installed pastor, the services, by request, being held 
in the Independent Presbyterian church, of which, 
the noted evangehst, Dr. Daniel Baker, was then 
pastor. After eighteen months of conscientious and 
faithful service and laborious work in this, his first 
and only pastoral charge, he was constrained, by a 
sense of duty, to devote himself entirely to the great 
work of his life, to which his attention had been 
turned while a student in Princeton, and fuller pre- 
paration for which led him to accei)t his onh^ pas- 
toral charge, viz., the Evangelization of the Negro. 



96 Plantation Life 

The same motive, as I know, led him twice to ac- 
cept a call to the chair of Church History in Colum- 
bia Seminary, and the important position of Secre- 
tary of the Board of Domestic Missions of the 
ante belluni Presbyterian Church. 

With the interruptions above mentioned, in which, 
he kept the ruHng passion of his life steadily in 
view, he devoted his entire energies of body and 
mind, for a term of five 3'ears, to uninterrupted,, 
direct, personal labor, such as few men could or 
would have stood, among the blacks of his native 
county, at his own charges, and with wonderful suc- 
cess. The seeds of the disease which finally termi- 
nated his earthly career were probably laid in his 
system while lal)oring night and day in the malarial 
regions of Liberty county, the destructive effect of 
which it needed only the confinement of office 
work in Philadelphia, and pressure of responsi- 
bility and of wearing toil (for he was a man who 
put his whole soul into whatever he undei-took) 
to complete. Reluctantly^ resigning his position, 
he came home to rest and recuperate. The hope of 
ultimate recovery was not, however, destined to be 
reaHzed. And here beg-ins the invalid life of this. 



Before Emancipation. 9T 

man of God, protracted tlirough ten years, in wliicli 
gradually declining from what is known as wasting 
palsy — a rare disease — but with intellect undimmed, 
he did more work with pen and tongue than many 
a minister in full possession of health and vigor. 
He preached constantly, sitting, when unable to 
stand, upon a chair and a platform which he had. 
had constructed and placed in the African church at 
Midway. Often did I hear my parents remark of 
him and his preaching at this time : " Dr. Jones is 
not far from heaven." It is a singular fact that 
this incessant worker, from an injury received in 
childhood, lived and labored with only one lung in. 
active play, occasioning often a sense of weariness 
in the vocal organs unknown to one in perfect 
health. 

The death of this good and great man, of whose 
labors we shall speak more particularly at another 
time, and which occurred when he was only fifty- 
nine, formed a fitting close to his life. 

No one watched the symptoms of approaching^ 
dissolution with greater care and composure than 
himself. His son. Dr. Joseph Jones, now of New 
Orleans, had, and still probably has, a minute his-> 



98 Plantation Life 

toiy of the entire progress of his disease, written 
out by himself, and continued up to the last month 
of his hfe, A period of unusual mortality among 
his servants, and sohcitude on their accoiuit, and his 
anxiety about the war, it is believed, hastened his 
end. Not many months before his death he re- 
marked to his eldest son, Charles C. Jones, LL. D., 
now of Augusta, Ga. : " My son, I am h\4ng in mo- 
mentary expectation of death, but the thought of its 
approach causes me no alarm. The frail tabernacle 
must soon be taken down. I only wait God's time." 
Four days before his departure he makes this record 
in his journal : 

''■March 12, 1863. — Have been very weak and 
dechning smce renewal of the cold on the 1st in- 
stant in the church (Midway). My disease appears 
to be drawing to a conclusion. May the Lord make 
me to say in that hour, in saving faith and love, 
' Into thy hands I commit my spirit ; Thou hast re- 
deemed me, O Lord God of truth.' (Ps. xxxi. 5.) 
So has our blessed Saviour taught us by His own 
example to do, and blessed are they who die in the 
Lord." 

On the morning of the 16th, on which he died. 



Before Emancipation. 99 

having batlied and dressed himself, as was his wont, 
with scrupulous care, he breakfasted down stairs 
with the family, and then spent the forenoon in his 
study up stau'S, sometimes sitting up and some- 
times reclining, conversing with his wife and sister, 
but with difficulty, and suffering from restlessness 
and debihty. Some of the sweet promises of Christ's 
presence with His j)eople in their passage through 
the dark valley being repeated to him by his com- 
panion, he sweetly rephed: "In health we repeat 
these promises, but now they are reahties." She 
again remarking, " I feel assured that the Saviour is 
with you," he answered : " I am nothing but a poor 
sinner ; I renounce myself and all self -justification, 
trusting only in the free, unmerited righteousness of 
the Lord Jesus Chiist." To his sons, absent in the 
army, he sent this message : " Tell them both to 
lead lives of godly men in Christ Jesus, in upright- 
ness and integrity." Upon the suggestion of his 
wife that he should retire to his room and rest 
awhile, he arose, and, supported on either hand by 
her and a loved sister, he walked into the adjoining 
chamber, playfully remarking " How honored I am 
in being waited upon by two ladies ! " Eechning 



100 Plantation Lue. 

upon liis bed, in a few moments, without a struggle, 
a sigli, a gasp, lie gently fell asleep in Jesus. A 
glorj almost unearthly, and which awed the very 
servants, rested after death upon his noble coun- 
tenance. Shortly afterwards, just as he was, in the 
same garments he had put on in the morning, wdth 
his white cravat unsoiled, and with every fold as his 
own hands had arranged it, he was borne back to 
his study, where, surrounded by the authors he had 
so loved in life, he seemed to rest in a peaceful 
sleep, until the third day follomng, when, after ap- 
propriate services, conducted by the Rev. Dr. D. L. 
Buttolph, in Midway meeting-house, his mortal re- 
mains were committed to the grave, in the venerable 
cemetery where his own parents and many genera- 
tions of God's saints are awaiting the resurrection 
morn. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

A MISSIONABT TO THE BLACKS— HIS LABORS 
AMONG THEM, 

DR. JONES' work among the slaves may be di- 
vided into Hs labors among them, and his 
labors for them; it is proposed in this letter to 
sketch the first. 

The main field of his missionary work was what 
was known as " the Fifteenth Company District of 
Liberty county, Ga." According to the census of 
1830, just three years before his first report of his 
labors to " The Association for the Eehgious Instruc- 
tion of the Negroes," the whole population of the 
county was as follows : AVhites, 1,544; blacks, 6,729 ; 
of these, owing to the lands being suitable to the 
production of rice and Sea Island cotton, 4,540 
were concentrated in the district just named. 

Here for five consecutive years of literally unm- 
terrupted activity, this devoted servant of God, by 
day and by night, in summer's heat and winter's 

101 



102 Plantation Lite 

cold, in sunshine and storm, and at his own charges^ 
labored for the salvation and consequent elevation 
of the race to whose good he had consecrated his 
splendid talents — gifts which, as they at intervals, 
called him to the highest positions in the church, 
would have fitted him for the most important pas- 
toral charge in the land. 

He had six preaching stations, in which there w^as 
either a house of worship, gladly tendered by the 
whites, or a building put up, at his suggestion, by 
the masters for the exclusive use of their people. 
These w^ere located in the most thickly settled 
neighborhoods, and accessible not only to pedes- 
trians, but to the children whom, with the adults, 
he gathered into his Sunday schools. Besides these 
regular Sabbath appointments, he held meetings 
during the week upon the plantations, where the 
feeble could be supplied with the word of life, and 
he could perform pastoral work to those who were 
too aged even to attend the neighborhood church. 

I give from memory a sketch of a Sabbath's la- 
bors. The missionary has come from his distant 
plantation home, necessitating an early start. As 
soon as possible, a prayer-meeting is held, at which 



Before Ema^^cipation. 103 

competent " watchmen " lead in prayer. Next fol- 
lows the sermon and its accompanying services of 
song and prayer. In the afternoon there is the 
Sunday-school for both adults and children, in which 
all are orally taught Scripture truth and doctrine, 
drilled thoroughly in the use of Jones' Catechism, 
and all interspersed with hymns and tunes learned, 
the one leader doing all that is done in an ordinary 
school by superintendent and teachers together. 
Then follows an inquiry-meeting for the serious 
and candidates for membership. Then a meeting 
of the "watchmen" of the district is held, in which 
the pastor receives detailed reports, of the state of 
rehgion and conduct of the members on the various 
plantations, and discipHnes delinquents when neces- 
sary. And all this is interspersed with wise coun- 
sels given to these humble under-shepherds ap- 
pointed by chm*ch and pastor as his helpers. The 
sun is low in the sky when the servant of God, 
"weary yet rejoicing, turns his steps homeward. 

The week, spent largely in his study (for he pre- 
pared thoroughly for his services), and in the over- 
sight of his plantations, does not witness rest fi'om 
his preaching labors ; for he has appointments 



104 Plx\ntation Lite 

during the week upon all the plantations open to 
him, as all were in course of time, and as his 
strength permits. 

His custom was to send on, some time in advance, 
to a planter favoring his work, an appointment for 
an evening in the week ; leaving to him aU the de- 
tails of arrangement. Sometimes the service was 
held in the planter's mansion, the j^eople bringing 
with them their own benches or chairs, and some- 
times in one of the negro houses, or the "praise 
house," built for the purpose. On his own planta- 
tion it was a neat plastered building, with belfry 
and beU. If in the planter's house, the parlor was 
illuminated by candles and a cheerful fire on the 
hearth. If in the quarters, often the main illumi- 
nation would come from the great wide chimney 
with its roaring fire, no matter how warm the night 
chanced to be, with a single candle for the preacher. 
Here this devoted servant of God faithfully preached, 
and used "great plainness of speech." I have my- 
self been amazed, as I listened, to see how, without 
the loss of a particle of that dignity which was at 
once characteristic of the man, and of his concep- 
tions Ox the sacred ministry, he came down com- 



Before Emancipation. 105 

pletelj to the level of tlie intellectual calibre of liis 
humble hearers. The night service was followed or 
preceded by visits to the aged and sick. Not a few 
of these ser-vdces were held, with the temperature 
without almost that of summer, in small rooms, 
crammed with workers in their work-a-day clothes, 
with no window to open because of di-af t, and a hot 
fire on the hearth. This experience, as I have heard 
him say, was tiying in no ordinary degree to him ; 
for he was a polished gentleman, and neat in per- 
son and habits beyond most even of his own race. 

We need not wonder at the gradual subsidence 
of the suspicion, distrust and opposition encountered 
at the outset, on the part of some ungodly planters, 
when we peruse the wise rules adopted by him, 
mark his fidehty in preaching the whole counsel of 
God, and read the account of some of the precious 
fruits of his apostolical labors. With these we close. 

In his tenth report, in which he "reviews the 
work from the commencement," he writes: 

"I laid down the following rules of action, which 
I have ever endeavored to observe faithfully : 

"1. To visit no plantation without permission, 
and, when permitted, never without previous notice. 



106 Plantation Life 

" 2. To have nothing to do with the civil condi- 
tion of the negroes, or with their plantation affairs. 

" 3. To hear no tales respecting their owners, or 
drivers, or work, and to keep within my own breast 
whatever of a private nature might incidentally 
come to my knowledge. 

" 4. To be no party to their quarrels, and have no 
quarrels w4th them, but cultivate justice, impar- 
tiaHty, and universal kindness. 

" 5. To condemn, without reservation, ever^^ vice 
and evil among them, in the terms of God's holy 
w^ord, and to inculcate the fulfilment of every duty, 
whatever might be the real or apparent hazard of 
popularity or success. 

" 6. To preserve the most perfect order at all our 
public and private meetings. 

"1. To impress the people with the great value of 
the privilege enjoyed of rehgious instruction ; to in- 
vite their co-operation and throw myself upon their 
confidence and support. 

" 8. To make no attempt to create temporary ex- 
citements, or to introduce any new plans or mea- 
sures ; but make diligent and prayerful use of the or- 
dinary and established means of God's apj^ointment. 



Before Emancipation. 107 

" 9. To support, in the fullest manner, the peace 
and order of society, and to hold up to their respect 
and obedience all those whom God, in his pro^a- 
dence, has placed in authority over them. 

" 10. To notice no slights or unkindnesses shown 
to me personally ; to dispute with no man about the 
work, but depend upon the power of the truth and 
upon the Spirit and blessing of God, with long suf- 
fering, patience, and perseverance, to overcome op- 
position and remove prejudices, and ultimately bring 
all things right." 

There is an amusing instance related by himself 
in his thii'd report, and the particulars of which I 
heard from his own hps, illustrative of the tempo- 
raiy unpoj)ularity which he drew upon himself by 
simply preaching the truth. " Of youi' missionaiy 
some have said, 'We will not hear him; he preaches 
to please the masters.' And once upon a time, 
while enforcing a certain duty " (it was the duty of 
not running away, and from Paul's treatment of 
Onesimus, whom he sent back to his master), " when 
enforcing a certain duty from the ScrijDtui-es which 
servants owe to their masters, more than one-half of 
my large congregation rose up and went away, every 



108 Plantation" Life 

man to his house, and the part that remained seemed 
to remain more from personal respect to the preacher 
than from any hking to the doctrine." 

But if he fearlessly " declared the whole counsel 
of God " to the slave, he no less fearlessly declared 
it to the master, urging, and not without success, 
reforms in their treatment of their servants, both as 
bearing upon their physical comfort and the salva- 
tion of their souls. 

The natural result of his prudence and fidelit}^ 
to his mission, as an expounder of God's word, 
was the ultimate and complete removal of the 
suspicion and prejudice which he at fii'st en- 
countered, and a boundless popularity among the 
colored people, such as no man ever before or since 
has enjoyed. 

As tlie result of these faithful labors, the physical 
and moral conditions of the slaves were manifestly 
improved, a sense of responsibility in regard to their 
immortal interests awakened in the county, souls in 
large numbers were converted under his ministry, 
and saints built up and fitted for heaven. The par- 
ticular record of liis pastoral experience was un- 
fortunately consumed in the fire which destroyed 



Befoke Emancipatiox. 109 

his residence Tvhen a Professor iu tlie Seminary in 
Columbia. 

One precious revival occurred dui'ing his ministry, 
of -^hich there is an interesting account in his fifth 
report. As a result, more than a hundred members 
from this race were added to old IVIidway church in 
a little over a year. 

The eighth annual report closes with an account 
of a '^protracted meeting for the negroes,'' which 
furnishes suggestive reading to those who believe 
slaveiy was "the sum of villainies! " We quote: 

"In the month of November a protracted meeting 
was held at ]\Iidway chm-ch in connection with the 
meeting of the Presbytery of Georgia, which con- 
tinued a week. By universal consent of the chui^ch 
and congregation, Friday and Saturday were given 
to the negroes for religious worship, and some who 
were not members^ either of the church or congrega- 
tion gave their jpeopile the two days. Planters who 
were not members of the church united cordially in 
it.'' (Itahcs mine.) Ser%'ices were held on Friday and 
Saturday twice a day for the negroes in their own 
church. The house could not contain the people ; 
more without than within. On Sabbath they at- 



110 Plantation Life. 

tended from all parts of the county. The gallery 
of the white church was filled, and perhaps as many 
remained around the doors and windows of the 
churches as had been accommodated with seats 
within. The greatest order and propriety prevailed. 
The members of the church were particularly grate- 
ful for the privileges allowed them, and all seemed 
anxious to hear the gospel. This protracted meet- 
ing for the negroes deserves to be mentioned, as an 
index of the interest of owners in their eternal wel- 
fare, of their wilhngness to grant them every oppor- 
tunity of salvation, and to share the gospel with 
them, and of their general order, sobriety and pro- 
priety of conduct. The moral effect upon the 
negroes has been of the most satisfactory kind. It 
has given them increased respect for and attach- 
ment to their owners, and impressed them with the 
sincerity of their desu'es for their best good, and 
it has led them to believe more in the value and ne- 
cessity of religion." 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

A MISSIOFABY TO THE BLACKS— HIS LABORS 
FOR THEM. 

DR. C. C. JONES was, in the fullest sense of the 
term, a philanthropist. A^Tiile his direct object 
was the salTation of the soiil, the body was not 
neglected. Not content with conversion, he aimed 
to build up Christian character, and in every possi- 
ble way he sought to awaken, and not without mar- 
vellous success, the entire South to a deeper sense 
of responsibihty for the temporal and spiritual wel- 
fare of the slave. 

I. JSis labors for their physical improvement. In 
his reports to "The Association for the Religious 
Instruction of the Negroes," and in his paper read 
before Synod, he feailessly pressed upon his fellow- 
slave-holders their duties to the bodies of their 
slaves. In his second report, in 1834, he uses this 
language, which may sound strangely to some ears: 
" While we think that we see an improvement in 
111 



112 Plantation Life 

their physical condition upon past years, we would 
say that there is still vast room for improvement. 
They are entitled to a far larger portion of the 
avails of their labor than they haue hitherto been 
accustomed to receive.'' (Italics mine.) In his third 
report, in 1835, he uses this strong language, ad- 
dressed to his fellow-citizens and fellow-Christians : 
" If you do not labor and be at some sacrifice to im- 
prove their physical con'' it ion, providing more lib- 
erally, and to the extent of your means, for their 
comfort, in good houses, good clothing, and good 
food ; if you do not regulate their discip)line so as 
to maintain authority without injustice, they cannot, 
and will not, value your instruction." In an elab- 
orate report of a committee appointed by the Synod 
of South Carohna and Georgia in 1833, endorsed, 
"Prepared by C. C. J.," and having for its chairman 
Moses Waddel, D. D., and such additional names as 
B. M. Palmer, D. D., S. S. Davis, S. J. Cassels, 
James English, etc., which was adopted and pub- 
lished to the world, the following bold language is 
found: "The principle which regulates duty in 
slavery on the part of the master has been thus de- 
fined : ' Get aU you can, and give back as little as 



Before Emancipation. 113 

you can ' ; and on the part of the servants the re- 
verse, * Give as httle as you can, and get back all 
you can.' When we remember what human nature 
is, and when we obsei'\^e the conduct of masters and 
servants, we fear that there is too much truth as to 
the existence of this principle." "Eeligion will tell 
the master that his servants are his fellow-creatures, 
and that he has a Master in heaven to whom he 
shall account for his treatment of them. The mas- 
ter will be led to inquiries of this sort: In what 
kind of houses do I permit them to live ? A\niat 
clothes do I give them to wear ? What food to eat, 
what privileges to enjoy? In what temper and 
manner and proportion to their crimes are they 
punished? " Extracts might also be given in which 
he urges the provision of sufficient house-room for 
growing famihes, to secure privacy, and exhorts 
masters to prevent, by authority, open immorality in 
the slaves, and to abstain from aU violation of the 
marriage bond by separating husband and wife. 

Now, it required uncommon boldness to speak and 
write thus, when the insidious efforts of abolitionists 
to stir up the slaves to the use of torch and knife 
had rendered the Southern mind exceedingly sensi- 



114 Plantation Life 

tive and suspicious ; traces of wliicli sentiments are 
to be found in references in some of his earlier reports. 

In his tenth report (1845), in which he reviews ten 
years of work among masters and servants, he grate- 
fully notes improvement in these words : " The re- 
ligious instruction of the negroes has had a good ef- 
fect upon masters. We observe a milder discipline 
and kinder feelings and greater attention to the 
morals and comforts of the people, and, as a conse- 
quence, their physical condition is improved." In 
his twelfth report, presented in 1847, he remarks : 
"Greater attention is paid to their clothing, their 
food, their houses, their comforts, their family rela- 
lations and morahty at home. And the appearance 
of the people, both at home and abroad, indicates 
this increased care and attention on the part of their 
owners." 

II. Their spiritualimprovenient. His work was 
not done when the slave became, through grace, 
Christ's freeman ; he proceeded to build him up into 
a citizen of Zion. And recognizing the agency of 
divine truth in this process, he not only earnestly 
preached but, diligently taught 3'oung and old, in the 
only way then possible, that is, orally. 



Before Ejiancipation. 115 

Reminding the uninformed reader that aboUtion- 
ists of that day did not scruple to pubhsh and 
mail the most incendiary documents, and even to 
place them in the veiy packages used in the South- 
ern kitchens, he will understand the motive of some 
laws passed in the South, forbidding the instruction 
of the negro in the art of reading. It was our mis- 
take ; but there was in the fact just stated at least 
a j)alliation, and in most States the law was a dead 
letter. The white children w^ere always ready to, and 
did, teach any who wished it, to read. We quote from 
the Synodical report this faithful statement of this 
difficulty in evangelizing the negro : " It is univer- 
sally the fact throughout the slave-holding States, 
that either custom or law prohibits to them the ac- 
quisition of letters, and consequent^ they can have 
no access to the Scriptures. The proportion that 
read is infinitely smaU; the Bible, so far as they can 
read it themselves, is to all intents and purposes a 
sealed book, so that they are dependent for their 
knowledge of Christianity upon oral instruction, as 
much so as the unlettered heathen, when fii'st visited 
by GUI' missionaries. If our laws in their operation 
seal up the Scriptures to the negroes, we should not 



116 Plantation Life 

allow them to suffer in tlie least degree, so far as any 
effort on our part may be necessary, for want of 
knowledge of their contents." 

Compelled thus to rely upon oral instruction for 
the communication, not only of saving truth to 
children, but more advanced j. Jigious knowledge to 
adults, he was very early in his work among the 
slaves constrained to prepare a manual of his own. 
"We find an allusion to it in his first report to " the 
Association." " The children and youth have been 
to all appearance much interested. I instruct them 
from a catechism which I am attempting to prepare 
for them." In the tenth report he gives this inter- 
esting account of the causes which led to the com- 
position of this interesting manual: "A difficulty 
presented itself at the very beginning of my Sab- 
bath-school instruction. There were no books ! I 
tried all the catechisms. Necessity forced me to 
attempt something myself. I prepared the lessons 
weekly, and tried them and corrected them from 
the schools, and the result was ; " The Catechism 
of Scripture Doctrine and Practice ; " or, to give 
the title more fully, "A Catechism of Scripture Doc- 
Doctrine and Practice, for Famihes and Sabbath- 



Before Emancipation. 117 

schools. Designed also for the oral instruction of 
colored persons. By Charles C Jones." 

He steadily refused the request of the Presbyte- 
rian Board of Publication to publish an edition -^^ith 
the reference to the negro left off, for use in white 
schools. His method of composing it, as I learned 
from his own Hps, was to ask the question and 
then note the answer, and frequently the extem- 
poraneous reply of the negro pupil would be so 
superior in plainness to his written answer, that he 
would substitute it for his own. This catechism 
was translated into Armenian by Rev. Dr. J. B. 
Adger when a missionary in Syria, and by Eev. 
John Quarterman into one of the dialects of China, 
and used in both countries. It was universally 
adopted in Liberty county and in many parts of the 
South, and found invaluable in the family as well as 
in the instruction of the slaves. The writer used it 
to great advantage in his own household in the re- 
ligious training of his children, and in preparing 
colored catechumens for church membership. Here 
is what its author has to say of the possibihty of 
communicatii]g truth orally to the slave : " That 
they are apt in receiving instruction, none have ever 



118 Plantation Life 

doubted who have favored us with their presence 
for a single Sabbath. No difference will be per- 
ceived generally between them and other childi^en 
in like circumstances. There are scholars who can 
repeat thirty pages of the catechism with accuracy, 
and by varying the form of the questions, and so 
putting their knowledge to proof, it will be seen 
that they recite with intelligence also. To those 
who are ignorant of letters, their memory is their 
hook. That facult}^ is capable of astonishing im- 
provement. Knowledge raay be communicated and 
retained to almost any extent through oral instruc- 
tion alone. In a recent examination of one of the 
schools, I was forcibly struck with their remem- 
brance of passages of Scripture. Those questions 
which turned upon and called for passages of Scrip- 
ture, the scholars answered more readily than any 
other. It was with them as with all youth, a Scrip- 
ture fact, a Scripture story, once told and impressed, 
is stamped on the tablet of memory forever." 

We venture the assertion that the slave population 
of Liberty county, enjoying these advantages, had a 
clearer and more systematic and thorough knowledge 
c>f Scripture history, doctrine and practice than many 



Before Emancipation. 119 

a white community this day who can read and have 
only such preaching as can be supplied by some 
Evangelical denominations. I know from experience 
that the faithful instruction enjoyed in that favored 
county through the apostohcal labors of this godly 
minister woke up the mind of the African to the 
agitation of questions which astonished me. For 
example, an intelhgent carpenter, upon whom it was 
my custom to call to lead in prayer, once took me 
aside before service and asked me how he should 
represent to himself the three persons of the God- 
head in prayer so as to avoid idolatry ! 

Under this combined instruction of the pulpit 
and Sabbath-school, multitudes of precious souls 
were not only converted, but trained for earth and 
heaven. 

It were to be wished that some liberal-hearted 
Christian could be induced to furnish the means to 
pubhsh an edition of this most valuable Catechism, 
with only such few changes as would be necessary 
in their altered circumstances, for the use of our 
colored population. Prepared by one who loved, 
gave his hfe to, and studied and knew the race more 
2yerfectly than any man living or dead, the Catechism 



120 Plantation Lite. 

would, I doubt not, be as useful now as it was iu the 
past. 

Note. — A copy of tlie Catechism in my library fell, 
with the rest of my books, into the hands of Sher- 
man's soldiers. Strange to say, the chapter on the 
duties of masters and servants is undisturbed, but 
the chapter on "What the Church of God is," has 
suffered, both from the knife and the pencil of a 
zealous Baptist, presumably a chaplain, an enemy to 
infant baptism. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

A MISSIONARY TO THE BLACKS— HIS LABORS 
FOR THEM. 

IT was impossible in the last chapter to present, 
without engrossing too much space, eTen a sketch 
of Dr. Jones' labors for the slave. Three things 
remain to be signalized under this head. 

in. Mis agency in the formation of an Associa- 
tion in his native county for the furtherance of 
this cause. 

I have in my Kbraiy a bound volume of pamphlets, 
once the property of Dr. Jones, and now mine by 
inheritance through his daughter. It is to me a 
precious and invaluable treasure. It contains the 
report of the Committee on the Eeligious Instruc- 
tion of the Colored Population, adopted by the then 
undivided Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, 
December, 1833, of which, as shown by his penciled 
endorsement, he, although not the chairman, was 
the author -, thirteen Annual Reports of C. C. Jones 
121 



122 Plantation Life 

to " The Association for the Rehgious Instruction of 
the Negroes," extending from 1833 to 1848 ; proceed- 
ings of a meeting held in Charleston by the friends 
of the cause in 1845, with a rejDort of a committee 
and an address to the holders of slaves in South 
Carolina, the result of that assembly of Christians 
and patriots of different denominations, and in which 
figure such noted South Carolina names as Huger, 
Capers, Cotesworth Pinckney, Barnwell, Pihett, 
Alston, Grimes, Memminger, Eavennel, and other 
names as prominent in the church as Dr. McWhir, 
Eev. Mr. Barnwell, Dr. C. C. Jones, Dr. Thomas 
Smyth, Dr. Benjamin Gildersleeve, Thomas S. Clay, 
etc. ; and also Dr. Jones' suggestions on the religious 
instruction of the negroes in the Southern States. 
A penciled note in Dr. Jones' hand- writing, at the 
bottom of the first page of the second report, states, 
"the first report was not to be had, as copies 
were burnt up," (in the burning of his residence in 
Columbia). Either he or his companion afterwards 
recovered it from some owner, and pinned it, with 
its leaves uncut, in its proper place. It seems 
providential that these reports should have been 
all preserved; for as will be seen fai'ther on, they 



Before EiLiNCiPATiox. 123 

contain an account, not simply of what one man and 
one county did, but what Southern Christians of 
every denomination had been doing for years for 
the salvation of their slaves. 

In the tenth report we have this account of the 
origin of an association of which Dr. Jones was the 
founder, and whose influence extended far beyond 
the bounds of the favored county which was for 
many years its home : 

" The spiritual wants and condition of the negroes 
in the county, their ignorance of the gospel, and the 
duty and the best means of affording them suitable 
and systematic instruction, were subjects of conver- 
sation with the ministers and certain members of 
the churches for some time in the winter of 1831 ; 
and on the 10th of March a meeting of persons fa- 
vorable to the adoption of some efficient plan for 
their rehgious instruction was called in Riceboro'. 
Upon consultation, it was determined to form an 
Associatio7i for the purpose, and a committee was 
appointed to prepare a report and a constitution, 
and Rev. C. C. Jones to deliver an address at 
another meeting, to be held in the same place on 
the 28th of March. At that meetiu"- the addi-ess 



124 Plantation Life 

was delivered, the constitution reported and adojDted, 
and the present Association formed. Twenty-nine 
individuals, in the course of some weeks, signed the 
constitution." 

From the constitution, published in the seventh 
report, we emphasize only the following j^articulars 
as bearing upon our object in these letters. Offi- 
cered as usual, any one might become a member by 
signing the constitution and paying an annual sub- 
scription of two dollars. To an executive committee 
was entrusted the entire supervision of the work of 
colored evangelization, in the selection of stations 
and appointment of " teacher or teachers " — that is, 
laborers. Meeting annually, a report or address 
was to be made by some person appointed by the 
Association. 

Article VI. reads : " The instructions of this Asso- 
ciation shall be altogether oral, embracing the gen- 
eral principles of the Christian rehgion, as under- 
stood by orthodox Christians, avoiding, in the pub- 
lic instruction of the negroes, doctrines which par- 
ticularly distinguish the different denominations of 
the countiy from each other." 

Designedly undenominational, its iirst officers 



Before Emancipation. 125 

were : Pres^ident, Eev. Eobeii Quarterman (Presb}-- 
terian) ; Vice-President, Rev. Samuel S. Law (Bap- 
tist). Executive Committee: Thomas Bacon (Bap- 
tist), Thomas Mallard (Presbji^erian), etc. ; and Mis- 
sionaiy, Rev. Charles C. Jones (Presbyterian). 

From the first, composed of the best and most 
prominent citizens of the county, this noble Associa- 
tion, by its annual meetings, to which the public 
was invited ; by the information collected and pub- 
lished, by its indefatigable missionary, concerning 
the needs of the negro, and what was being done, 
not only in the county, but throughout the South ; 
and by the stu'ring addresses delivered from time to 
time by himself and other ministers, communicated 
a constant impulse to the work at home. As will 
be seen, it was no small instrument of stimulating 
Christians throughout the South to similar activity. 

rV". JIls 2>^'^8onal efforts outside the county a?ul 
State to interest the church and country in thQ 
cause. 

In the interval between his two periods of work 
among the slaves of Liberty county, he made an 
extenf^ive tour through the States, and wherever he 
journeyed he embraced every opportunity in inter- 



126 Plantation Lite 

esting his fellow-citizens in the evangehzation of the 
negro. I extract from the fifth report. Referring 
to " an extended and protracted journey through 
the Northern and Middle States," he remarks : 

" There was no subject more solicitously inquired 
into by judicious and pious men with whom we 
met; and frequent opportunities were afforded me 
by special invitation, of the most respectable kind, 
for laying before the people assembled for the pui'- 
pose, a sketch of what was doing in the Southern 
States for the instruction of the negroes in the 
principles of Christianity, and of expressing the 
views and feelings of the Southern churches on the 
subject. These addresses were received with unani- 
mous satisfaction, saving one unimportant excep- 
tion." 

As a Professor of Church History in Columbia, 
he not only, if I remember, organized a flourishing 
colored Sunday, school, but embraced the many op- 
portunities, public and private, w^hich constantly 
occurred in his intimate associations with the stu- 
dents, to turn their minds toward the neglected col- 
ored population of the South. And the engrossing 
cares of his official life as Secretaiy of Home Mis- 



Before Emancipation. 127 

sions did not induce f jrgetfulness of the negro ; for 
he sought to shaj^e the work of that important arm 
of the church with decided and special reference to 
that portion of the home field found on the planta- 
tions of the South. 

V. Ills labor for them in his correspondence a?id 
publications. 

The annual reports give eyidence of a vast personal 
correspondence with men all over the South upon 
the subject of the negro — a coiTespondence, with 
perhaps some assistance from members of his family, 
conducted mainly by his own pen. 

His reports and addresses, prepared for and de- 
livered before ecclesiastical bodies, master-pieces in 
their way, were pubhshed "under their official sanc- 
tion, and widely circulated throughout the South, 
stirring the churches of every name as with the blast 
of a trum^^et. 

His annual reports to the local Association, as they 
were intended for a larger audience, so through the 
press were they distributed throughout the South, 
and had a wonderful effect in arousing the Southern 
conscience in regard to their duty to the slave. In 
the second report I find this allusicm to this method 



128 Plantation Life 

of promoting the cause : " It may be gratifying to 
the Association to know that two editions of their 
report for the past year have been printed, and there 
is now a demand for a third" An extract from one 
of the many letters received pays this tribute to his 
work: "Your noiseless labors in Liberty county 
are not unobserved by the Christian world, and are 
watched with intense interest by many." 

While we would not discount the labors of count- 
less conscientious masters and mistresses in instruct- 
ing and catechising their slaves, and of faithful min- 
isters who labored among them, and prominent 
Christians who with tongue and pen wrought for 
the salvation of the slave, with a fidelity which doubt- 
less will receive recognition " at that da}'," we do not 
hesitate to say that Charles Colcock Jones, whether 
his labors among or his labors for them with tongue 
and pen be considered, deserves more than any man 
who has ever lived the title of " The Apostle to the 
Negro Slave ! " 

This resume of his labors for the redemption of 
the negro cannot be more appropriately closed than 
in these words, which disclose the great loving heart 
of this eminent servant of Christ : 



Before Emancipation. 12^ 

" I cannot describe the peculiar and joyful feelings 
that have possessed my mind when I have seen peni- 
tents from this long neglected and degraded people 
inquiring what they must do to be saved. It is not 
building upon another man's foundation. You are 
in the a -hways and hedges. You gather the first 
fruits yourself, and the undivided joy takes full pos- 
session of the souL " 



CHAPTER XVI. 

RELIGIOUS ANECDOTES OF THE NEGRO. 

IAIVI quite sure that our readers will be glad to 
have the following anecdotes, illustrative of negro 
character, and of the results of the faithful instruc- 
tions of Rev. Charles Colcock Jones and his feUow- 
laborers, the planters of Liberty county, Ga. I will 
not occupy space with comments. 

Under the head of " Degree of Religious Intelli- 
gence Among the People," he gives the following 
incidents : 

Said one, speaking of the rehgious advantages en- 
joyed : " Sir, the people never had the gospel so 
opened to their understandings before ; many 
walked in darkness for the want of the true Light ; 
but all the power of God is needed to make them 
profit by it; God only can open 'men's hearts." 
Another : " If any are lost in this Liberty county, it 
will be their fault. They have hght enough, and 
close at hand, and privileges enough to go to. Yea, 
130 



Before Emancipation. 131 

more, the light is brought on the plantations and 
set down at their very doors. " 

An observing man gave it as his opinion "that 
the peo]Dle were better able now to understand the 
gospel from ministers preaching to the ichites than 
formerly. For example, they were able to follow 
the ministers with their copy ; whereas, beforetime, 
they could not do so at all. The reason he believed 
to be an increase of knowledge through the Sabbath- 
schools and direct preaching to the negroes. He 
thought ministers did much better in preaching 
when they put down their copy." 

The following is a dialogue between a man and a 
woman : " I saw you talking to the minister before 
meeting, and you told him everything that was 
doing on the plantation." "Good woman, I did 
not." "Sir, you did. How came the minister to 
know what was done on the place only Saturday 
night? Everj^body in the church knew who he was 
talking about. Do 3'ou think people like to be car- 
ried into the pulpit and turned every which way for 
people to look at ? " " Woman, you wrong me ; you 
have not the right understanding of the matter. 
Does not God know all things ? " " Well, sir, I 



132 Plantation Life 

know that as well as you do ! " "But, woman, put 
your knowledge to use. Does not tlie minister 
preach the Word of God f Does not the word of 
God know alLj ings? Was it not made to suit 
everybod}^ ? Well, then, the minister did not know 
i7i Jiimself anything about you, hut the v)ord of God 
did ; and by the way you speak now, it^^^ you ex- 
actl}^ ; and so it proves itself to you to be the AVord 
of God that knoweth all things, and, instead of 
being vexed with the word of God, you had better 
straighten your ways and be at peace with it." 

A member of the church gave the preacher the 
following encouragement ; " You j^reach Sunday ; 
you preach in the week ; many hear. The seed falls 
on much ground; now some will turn and come; 
the good seed will sometimes fall on good ground ; 
so keep on preaching ; keep throwing your net, you 
will catch some." 

During a revival a " watchman " insisted : " Sir, 
do not take the people ^7^ too soon y instruct them 
well ; make them wait; such and such men were 
taken into the church during the revival in Mr. 

■ 's time ; they partook of the sacrament once 

or twice, and there ended their religion. It is easy 
taking in, but it is hard i^utting out." 



Before Emancipation. 133 

Mounting his horse at a close of a plantation 
meeting, the preacher was thus addressed : " Sir, 
please to come as often as j^ou can. Plantation 
meetings do as much good as /Su7i>. y meetings ; be- 
cause on Sunday many garnish theni.jelves and go 
to church for show; they hear, but do not attend. 
On the plantation they do not garnish themselves, 
nor look around, but give attention to the Word." 

One member asked counsel of another : "Is 
twice a week often enough to hold plantation pray- 
ers?" It was answered: "No! my brother. Do 
we eat and drink every day ? Does God keep the 
people on the plantation from evil every day "? Does 
he keep them from evil every night ? Must we not 
thank God for these mercies? "We cannot give 
God thanks enough for it if we try. Do we not sin 
every day, and every day need God's pardon and 
God's help to do our duty? My brother, ice must 
pray every day for ourselves, and hold plantation 
prayers every night." 

A " watchman " who was giving instruction io a 
house servant^ .fgr some reason not very creditable to 
himself, did not wish the fact known to the mis- 
tress, and told the woman not to tell to whom she 
12 



134 Plantation Life 

bad been. Another watcliman reproved Viim thus : 
"You do -wrong. Tou are leading the woman to 
God hy the way of the devil. While you tell her to 
be honest and sincere before God, you teach her to 
lie to men.." 

At an inquiry meeting one answered : " I came 
to church here; I went home and thought of the 
sermon ; my sins troubled me ; I went to my mistress ; 
she told me to go, pray and confess my sins to God, 
and beg him to forgive me and give me a new heart 
for Chi'ists gate." Another said: "My master 
spoke to me about my soul, and I considered what 
he said, and my sins troubled me." Another : " I 
was in the prayer-house on the plantation; I was 
careless. At the close I was weak as water. I was 
afraid I should die and be lost ; I felt very wicked ; 
I felt I needed assistance. I could not save my- 
self." Another: "I felt very mean on account of 
my sin; I felt I needed a Saviour. That feeling 
made me go to Christ." Said another: "Ah! sir; 
my heart and the Bible are not 07ie." 

The experience of a young man beHeved to be 
converted was thus related by himself: "Eeligion 
began in me by Httle and little, and deepened as I 



Before E>l\ncipation. ' 135 

-went fol•^Yar(l. A full year or more before I hoped I 
was converted, I ofttimes would go out of the house 
from among my wicked companion?, leave music 
and dancing, and go aside and pray, and come 
back; but was ashamed to tell that I had gone out 
to pray." His attention was particularly called to 
religion by what he had read in Webste7''s SpellhKj 
Booh ! "Wishing to leam to read, he got a book 
and spelled out: ''Sin will lead us to pain and 
u'oef' and agam: ''A bad man can take oio rest 
day or night ;" and he felt that it was so — he could 
rest neither day or night. He went on until it was 
impossible to contain his feelings, and then made 
them known. 

This young man also related a conversation with 
one of his old dissipated companions : " You and I 
can never be as great (intimate) as we have been, 
because I do not love your ways noic as I used to do, 
neither do you love my ways. To be as great as we 
]iave been, yo>c must come to me, or I must go hack 
to you. Go back to you I cannot; you m,ust come 
to me. Nor can I be icitJi you as before. A doctor 
visits a sick man and gives him medicine, and goes 
away. Now suppose that doctor lives, eats and 



136 Plantation Life 

sleeps in the bed continually with the sick man, will 
he not be sure to catch his siclmess or something 
from him ? So if I come and eat and sleep with you, 
I shall be presently as bad as you are. All I can dn 
is, come and tell you the "Word, and give you in- 
struction, according to my weak understanding, and 
go away; and yet I am your friend, and a better 
and safer friend than ever."' His friend answered: 
*'I cannot go your way." "Stop!" said he. "If 
I tell you where you may go and do a piece of work 
and get money, will you not go? Now rehgion is 
better than silver or gold ; if I tell you the way you 
can go and seek rehgion, will you not go for it? You 
are seeking to get up a great character with master, 
driver, people, everybody. What will hurt your 
character you care for; what will not hurt 3'our 
character you do not care for. After you get this 
character you are satisfied. You are wrong. Let 
me te"".] you, the simier has the meanest character 
on the face of the earth. The sinner does not know 
it, and cannot see it, until he is brought out of 
it. Then he can see and know it. I know it be- 
cause I see it, but you do not. I call the sinner 
devil y' now this hurts your feelings. Now listen to 
me. Angels in heaven are righteous; Jesus is 



Before Emancipation. 137 

holy ; God is holy; sin is filthy. You are a sinner; 
you are filthy; you are the devil! What meaner 
character can a man be, than be as the devil ?" 

The interest often felt in the conversion of their 
masters is strong and lively. " You know my master. 
It is in his power to forbid all prayer and praise on 
the place; to stop the voice. But it is not in the 
power of man to destroy love in the heart ; to make 
us hate the God we love. We can love in silence. 
But my master stops no man in religion. He says 
he will stand in no man's way. We ring our bell 
and hold our prayers continually. I only wish he 
were a Christian. But I live in hope. I think I see 
an alteration, ^^^len he speaks now of the business 
on the plantation he says, ^ If loe live," ^ If Provi- 
dence permits,' we will do this and that ; in times 
past, he did not use to speak so." 

But we must close, and we do it with two anec- 
dotes, which bring before us our "missionary to 
the blacks" in the sweetness of his humility, and 
tenderness of his loving appreciation of the x^iety and 
fidelity of his humble co-workers in the building up 
of Christ's kingdom among the lowly. " There never 
has been an instance of an individual's declining to 



138 Plantation Life 

pray v,]ien called upon to do so. (My own experi- 
ence.) Many of their prayers, thougli uttered in 
broken language, have been of great fervency, com- 
pass and exj)ression. I can never forget the prayers 
of Dembo, a native African, for many years a mem- 
ber of Midway church. There vras a depth of hu- 
mility, a conviction of sinfulness and inability to all 
good, an assurance of faith, a sense of the divine 
presence, a nearness of access to God, a sioiritual 
perception of, and a union with Christ as the Hf e and 
righteousness of the soul, a flowing out of love, a 
being swallowed up in God, which I never heard 
before or since ; and often when he closed his prayers, 
I felt I was as weak as water, and that I ought not 
to open my mouth in public, and indeed knew not 
what it w^as to pray. Tliis modest, exemplary and 
holy man died full of years, in lirm hope of a blessed 
immortality, leaving behind him the fragrance of his 
virtues and a bright example in all the relations of 
life." And this from one, who most of all men I 
have ever heard pray, lifted the suppliant into the 
very presence chamber of the great King, and pros- 
trated the soul before the majesty of heaven in rev- 
erential and adoring love ! 



Before Emancipation. 139 

He "writes : "On the death of Jack Salters, which 
occm-red when Mr. Gildersleeve was pastor of Mid- 
way church, he was succeeded by Sharper^ belonging 
to Mrs. Quarterman, a man of most remarkable in- 
tegrity, piety, zeal and energy of character; who 
enjoyed the confidence of the entire community until 
his death, which occurred in the spring of 1833. He 
not only preached at *the Stand,' at Midway, on the 
Sabbath, as his predecessors had done, but he labored 
with apostoHcal zeal more abundantly than they all. 
He attended regularly meetings not only at the estate 
of Lamberts (the plantation left by Mr. Lambert for 
charitable and rehgious purposes), and at Mr. James' 
plantation, but many others. His evening meetings 
with the people were very numerous, his influence 
great and solely for God. He was a special instru- 
ment in the hands of God for the moral improvement 
and salvation of the negroes of the county. The 
effects of his labors are seen on every hand at this 
day. He died full of years, universally lamented. 
I attended his funeral. It was on the green in front 
of Midway church, by the Hght of the moon. Be- 
tween two and three himdred negroes were present. 
At the close of the services we opened the coffin. The 



140 Plantation Life. 

moon shone upon his face. The people gazed upon 
it and Hfted up their voices and wept. His sons 
bore him to his gTave. In silence we returned to our 
homes, oppressed with grief at this heavy affliction 
of God!" 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WHAT WAS BONE FOR THE NEGRO BY OTHEU 
MEN AND WOMEN, MINISTERS, CHURCHES, 
AND COMMUNITIES. 

ONE can but be amused ^vitll the simplicity with 
which George Miiller avows that his great or- 
phanage, with its two thousand inmates, was con- 
ducted entirely upon the principle of making its 
wants known exclusively to God. The condensed 
history of the straits to which it was from time to 
time reduced, and wonderfully reheved in answer to 
praj^er, with the story of the governing piinciple and 
the wants of the orphans, annually published and 
paraded throughout the United Kingdom, was the 
strongest and most effective appeal for human help ; 
his practice was more scriptural than his theory. 

There was no such incompatibility between the 
theory and the practice of our philanthropist mis- 
sionary; he combined work with prayer, and gave 
due credit to each. 

141 



142 Plantation Life 

Referring to his early commercial life, I remem- 
ber to have heard him say that there was room even 
in a rnerchant's avocation for the largest exercise of 
intellect. Had he been permitted to serve God and 
his generation in that calling, he would have been 
among the foremost, not only in success, but intelli- 
gence ; he would have familiarized himself with the 
history of ancient and modern commerce, with coun- 
tries and their productions, with the highways of 
the seas and lands and modes of transportation, and 
the laws of finance. Now, all this thoroughness of 
information, breadth of view, firmness of grasp, 
clearness of vision, and painstaking industry, he 
carried into his Hfework. He informed himself 
concerning the history of African slavery, and the 
numbers and condition, physical and spiritual, of 
the negro race in America. And bearing upon his 
great heart the immortal interests, not only of the 
four thousand slaves, constituting, we may say, his 
immediate pastoral charge, but of the two millions 
of them scattered throughout the South, he, while 
diligently cultivating his own particular field, took 
wdthin his sympathetic vision the entire area of 
slavery, and labored as earnestly to have accom- 



Before E^L\NCIPATION. 143 

plislied by other hands the same work he, with his 
co-laborers, was doing in his native coimtj. It is 
this last pecuharitj which makes the work I have 
undertaken in this letter easy. Only fom- out of 
tlie thirteen reports rendered to " The Association 
for the Religious Instruction of the Xegro " are con- 
fined to county work ; the balance give each, in turn, 
a more or less complete review of the work being 
done by other hands throughout the Southern 
church. 

To relate all that was accomplished by Southern 
Christians and philanthropists for the salvation and 
elevation of the negro slave would necessitate a j)ro- 
tr acted and difficult investigation, in which the 
labor involved would probably outweigh the result. 
With the aid of Dr. Jones' reports, we hope to be 
able to give such specimens as will inspire us with 
an exalted opinion of the Southern slave-holder. 

We begin with the following candid and fearless 
presentation of the lamentable condition of the 
negro when the great movement began throughout 
the South, in which Dr. Jones was not the only, but 
the most potent factor. It is from his pen, and 
bears date of 1834: : 



144 Plantation Lite 

" The negroes have no regular and efficient mm- 
istry; as a matter of coui'se, no churches ; neither 
is there sufficient room in white churches for their 
accommodation. We know of but five churches in 
the slave-holding States built expressly for their 
use. The galleries or back seats on the lower floor 
of white churches are generally apj^ropriated to the 
negroes, when it can be done with convenience to 
the whites. Where it cannot be done conveniently, 
the negroes who attend must catch the gospel as it 

escapes by the doors and windows From an 

extensive observation we venture to say, that not a 
twentieth part of the negroes throughout the 
Southern States attend divine worship on the 

Sabbath They have no Bibles to read at 

their firesides, they have no family altars, and when 
in affliction, sickness or death, they have no minis- 
ters to address to them the consolations of the 
gospel, nor to bury them with solemn and appro- 
priate services For the most part, they de- 
pend upon those of their own color, who perform 
them as well as they know how, if they happen to 
be at hand." 

It must not be inferred from these statements 



Before Emancipation. 145 

that the neglect was by any means universal; even 
the sombreness of this picture is relieved by such 
sunny touches as these: " Sometimes a kind master 
will perform these offices;" "Here and there a 
master feels interested for the salvation of his ser- 
vants, and is attempting something towards it, in 
assembhng them at evening for Scripture reading 
nnd prayer, in admitting and inciting quahfied per- 
sons to preach to them, in estabhshing a daily or 
weekly school for the children, and in conducting 
the labor and disciphne of the plantation upon 
gospel principles. We rejoice that there are such, 
and that the number is hicreasing." There were, 
no doubt, a faithful "seven thousand," if not more, 
in his, as in Elijah's day. 

The reports show a steady improvement in all 
particulars. AYe read of churches being built for 
them, in Liberty county and elsewhere, by slave 
owners; of men and women stirred up to personal 
work for the salvation of theu' people ; and of eccle- 
siastical bodies taking up the matter in good earnest, 
and resolving and going to work in the neglected 
field, with the most gratifjring results all over the 

South. 

13 



146 Plantation Life 

We -wisli it were in our power to publish tlie 
statements in extenso proving this, but we can only 
give specimens culled here and there from the broad 
and inviting field of these interesting annual re- 
ports. 

Under the head of individual efforts, take these 
illustrations: "Detail of a plan for the moral im- 
provement of negroes on plantations, by Thomas S. 
Clay, of Bryan county, Ga." Mr. Clay was a large 
rice planter on the Ogeechee river, a bosom friend 
of Dr. Jones, and living in the adjoining county. In 
the matter of control upon gospel principles and re- 
ligious instruction, his large plantation was a 
model, and his tractate was simply a publication to 
the Christian world of his mode of thus manag- 
ing it. 

This is said as far back as 1833 of a Virginia 
planter of Albemarle county, the owner of two hun- 
dred and fifty slaves : " He made special efforts to 
have the gospel preached to them. The conse- 
quence was that their whole condition and appear- 
ance were improved surprisingly. About thirty be- 
came professing Christians, and upwards of ninety 
joined the temperance society. This gentleman 



Before Emancipation. 147 

made liberal offers to any minister who would under- 
take the instruction of his peoiDle." This is only 
one of many examples of planters mentioned as 
thus faithful and liberal in offering to pay sufficient 
salaries to any who would preach to their ser- 
vants. 

A gentleman in New Orleans, to whom a report 
of the Association, and also the report of the Synod 
of South Carolina and Georgia, had been forwarded, 
writes as follows : " As the black population of this- 
State are immersed in reHgious ignorance, the circu- 
lation of these reports among the owners of slaves 
here might, I would hope, awaken them to a sense 
of their duty." Ordering one hundred and fifty 
copies of each, he continues : " The system of in- 
struction recommended in the reports had been 
pursued by me for a long series of years, with sig- 
nal success to my own private interests, the indi- 
vidual interests and happiness of my servants, and 
with the result of an entire change in their moral 
and reHgious character, and their habits of industry 
and submission to suiDeriors." 

In the report for the year 1843 a lady writes to 
him : " I have from childhood felt a deep interest, 



148 Plantation Life 

and have been much engaged in the rehgious in- 
struction of the colored people. I have used Brown's 
Catechism always. Your book meets fully my views 
and wishes," etc. 

His extensive correspondence all over the South 
brings to light many a faithful minister with a kin- 
dred zeal, giving the half or all his time to the reli- 
gious instruction of the negro. 

In the second annual report he quotes as follows 
from letters: "A clergyman in Natchez writes: 'I 
have committed to me the instruction of the negroes 
on five plantations, in all about three hundred, the 
owners of whom are professors of religion. I usually 
preach three times on the Sabbath, and after each 
sermon I spend a short time catechising. I have 
occasionally meetings for inquiry.' 

" From Oakland College, Mississippi, one writes : 
' I have three or four meetings on tho Sabbath. I 
preach once in a fortnight in the church, where 
about three hundred blacks assemble. Five of the 
plantations which I attend are within two miles of 
the church ; four others between four and six miles. 
... I endeavor to visit all the plantations once in 



Befobe Emancipation. 149 

two weeks. I go among the people, talk with them 
face to face, visit the sick, and pray with them.' 

"From the Savannah river: "I visit eighteen 
plantations every two weeks ; catechise the childi-en, 
an^ pray with the sick in the week. Preach twice 
or thiice ou the Sabbath. The owners have built 
three good churches at their o-\vn expense, all 
framed , 290 members have been added, and about 
400 children are instructed each week.'" 

We go outside of our record to add an additional 
illustrative item, for which we are indebted to the 
Southwestern Presbyteritoi. Speaking of Eev. James 
SmyUe, Eev. Henry McDonald writes in its columns : 
" In his old age, Mr. Smyhe devoted his time exclu- 
sively to the religion of the negToes. He had a 
large congregation of them. In addition to preach- 
ing the gospel to them, and reading to them the 
Scriptures, he taught them the Catechism. He used 
not only the Primary Catechism, but the Shorter 
Catechism of the "Westminster Assembly. Large 
classes of them could recite the whole of that cate- 
chism. He prepared a catechism for the colored 
people, which was adopted and recommended by 



150 Plai-ttation Jjife 

the Synod of Mississippi. This was before Dr. 
Jones published his catechism for them.' 

I cannot take up the space necessary to give 
specimens of the reports, resolutions and narratives 
passed or adopted by ecclesiastical bodies as they ^ 
are given at length in these reports. The informa- 
tion which they incidentally communicated shows, 
that there was a most wonderful awakening upon 
this subject throughout the Southern Zion. Equal 
space is impartially given in these reports (which 
you will search in vain to ascertain the missionary's 
denominational predilections) to the proceedings of 
Conferences, Associations, Councils, and Synods; and 
it is indeed hard to ascertain to which denomination 
of the one Holy Cathohc Church — Methodist, Bap- 
tist, Episcopal, or Presbyterian — belongs the honor 
of marching in the van of this host of southern 
slave-holding Christians, intent upon conquering by 
truth and love Africa-in-America for Christ. 

The full particulars of this evangelistic work 
among the negroes by southern Christians may 
never be written upon earth, but they are certainly 
inscribed b}^ the recording angel in "The Book of 
Record of the Chronicles" of Heaven; and to their 



Tefore Emancipation. 151 

everlasting honor they -will be read out by the King 
himseK in the presence of an assembled universe, 
■what day the " books shall be opened," and " God 
shall bring every work into judgment, with every 
secret thing, whether it be good or eviL" 



CHAPTEE XYIII. 

THE SEA-BOABD OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

** Lands intersected by a narrow frith, 
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed, 
Make enemies of nations, who had else 
Like kindred drops been mingled into one. " 

— Cowper. 

WHILE not foes, only tlie beautiful and narrow 
Savannah divides the Georgia sea-board from 
the South Carolina coast. The same features mark 
the landscape, the fringe of long, narrow, low islands 
crowned with live oak, cedar, palmetto and myrtle, 
and beating back the thundering sui'f; the wide 
-waving salt marshes, broken here and there by broad, 
deep estuaries, and everywhere intersected by wind- 
ing streams, as the tide rises or falls, now filling, 
now receding from the mud banks, and periodically 
overflowing, in wide inundation, the meadows; and 
gleaming like ribbons of silver upon a robe of green, 
and stocked with fish; high, yellow, sandy, pine- 
covered bluffs, ornamented with planters' summer 
152 



Plantation Life 153 

residences; broad stretches of rich alluvial lands, 
waving ^vith golden rice or snowy with Sea Island 
cotton; boundless forests of long-leaf pine, int^r- 
sected by swamps; woods fragi-ant with magnolia 
"^and yellow jessamine, and fields and forests abound- 
ing with small and large game. Was it a wonder 
that one of the old navigators (Sir Walter Ealeigh, I 
beheve) thus wrote of it: "The great spreading 
oaks, the infinite store of cedars, the palms and bay 
trees of so sovereign odor that balm smelleth no- 
thing in comparison ; the meadows divided asunder 
into isles and islets, interlacing one another — these 
made the place so pleasant that those who are mel- 
anchohc would be forced to change their humor." 

Whether it was due to the sameness of origin, or 
shaping influence of similar environment, the inhab- 
itants of these two sections of the South, in one of 
which the writer had his experience of slavery, as 
before described, were, in many respects, strikingly 
alike. There was the same refinement and open- 
handed hospitality, the same fondness in the men 
for out-door sports, and skillful use of gun and rod, 
and splendid horsemanship. Their speech, too, was 
alike. Competent critics have affirmed that nowhere 



154 PiANTATioN Life 

in the world was the English language spoken in 
greater purity than among the low country people 
of these two sister States. The relations between 
slave and master were such as have ah'eady been 
described as jDrevailiug on the Georgia sea-coast. 
The negro population was vastly in excess of the 
■white, but perfectly orderly. 

To a friend, a minister of the same church with 
myseK, who, consecrated to the work from student 
days to the war, labored in this earthly paradise, I am 
indebted for the following information concerning 
the efforts of the church to give the gospel to the 
negro in their region. I give it in his language : 

" Let me jot down some statements which may be 
of use to you : 

" 1. Previously to the war, the coast of South Car- 
olina was covered by a network of missions among 
the slaves, conducted by the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. These missions were not the same 
as the circuits, nor were they embraced in them, but 
were served by separate ministers devoted to them. 
They were mainly supported hy the planters. Be- 
sides preaching, the functions of the missionaries 
included catechising of the childi'en, and vis- 



Before Emancipation, 155 

iting the sick on the plantations. It was a gieat 
work. 

" 2. The pastors of the Presbyterian church regu- 
larly preached to the colored people, large numbers 
of whom were members of their churches. In addi- 
tion to this, some of them preached regularly on 
plantations, catechising the negro children and 
youth, and visiting the sick. This was also a great 
work. 

" 3. The ministers t)f other Evangelical denomina- 
tions partook in similar labors. In the country 
along the San tee Eiver, Eev. Alexander Glen- 
nie, an Episcopal clergyman, devoted special atten- 
tion to the rehgious instruction of the negroes."* 
"Bishop Gadsden, of South Carolina, has this to 
say of Eev. Stephen EUiott, for so many years 
the eloquent preacher and revered Bishop of the 
Episcopal church in Georgia. He built a chapel, at 
his own expense, for the colored people in Prince 
Wilham's parish, and resigned his white charge that 

* The Eev. Benjamin Webb, a minister of the same church, 
converted under Dr. Daniel Baker's preaching, did ex(;elleut 
service as a missionary to the blacks in Beaufort District. — 
Rev. Br. B. M. Palmer. 



156 Plantation Life 

he might devote his entire care to the population of 
that parish; doing it * zealously, faithfully and gra- 
tuitously.^ 

"4. In cases in "which families, or members cf 
families, were pious, gi'eat attention was bestowed 
upon the instruction of the slaves, especially the 
children. Sabbath schools on plantations were main- 
tained. 

" 5. A special enterprise in 1848 was begun for the 
more thorough-going evangelization of the colored 
people in Charleston, under the auspices of the Eev. 
John B. Adger, D. D., and the session of the Second 
Presbji^erian Church. A brick house was built at a 
cost of seven thousand five hundred dollars. In 1859, 
in consequence of the enormous growth of the con- 
gregation, another church building, which cost 
twenty-five thousand dollars, contributed by the 
citizens of Charleston, was dedicated. This house 
was one hundred feet long by eighty broad, and was 
on a basement, divided into two rooms, which af- 
forded ample conveniences for prayer-meetings, cat- 
echising of classes, and personsd instruction of can- 
didates for membership. From the first, the great 
building was filled, the blacks occupying the main 



B-EFOEE Emancipation. 157 

floor, and the whites the galleries, whicn seated two 
hundred and fifty persons ! 

" The enterprise began as a branch congregation 
of the Second Presbyterian church ; then became a 
missionary church, under Rev. J. L. Girardeau, evan- 
gelist of Charleston Presbytery ; and, finally, in con- 
sequence of the admission of white members, a white 
church with a white session ! 

" The close of the war found it ANdth exactly five 
hundred colored members, and nearly one hundred 
white. Such was its growth from organization as a 
mission church, in 1857, with only forty-eight mem- 
bers." 

Presbyterian readers need not be informed that 
the faithful minister thus mentioned as connected 
with this remarkable enterprise is none other than 
the learned and able Professor of Theology in our 
beloved school of the prophets, in Columbia, S. C, 
Kev. John L. Girardeau, D. D. 

We doubt if the honored position to which he had 
been called by the unanimous voice of his church, 
and for so long a time has ably filled, gives a satis- 
faction greater than that which fiUs his soul, when 
he recalls the work done for his Master among tlie 



158 Plantation Life 

lowly, gathered Tvitliin the sacred walls of Zion 
chm^ch, erected by Southern slave-holders for the 
slave. 

We take the liberty of supplementing the brief 
account already quoted of this remarkable work, by 
the following fuller statement, which we find in the 
Southern Presbyterian Hevieic, of July, 1854. It is 
no violence of confidence to say that the article, al- 
though anonymous, is from the pen of the honored 
missionary himself. It is headed, "Eeport of a Con- 
ference by Presbytery (Charleston Presbytery) on 
the Subject of the Organization, Instruction and 
Discipline of the Colored People." The debate, 
covering all the ground as it did, and participated 
in by men having a practical acquaintance with the 
subject, must have been deeply interesting, as the 
report shows it was thorough and able. We extract 
the paragraph containing evident reference to Zion 
church, in Charleston : 

"The question of the segregation of the blacks 
from the whites in public worship was not at that 
time considered, simply because the policy of Pres- 
l)ytery in that matter had already been settled and 
openly adopted. It has been the almost universal 



Before Emaj^cipation. 159 

practice of oui' ministers for many years to convene 
the people into separate congregations, and dispense 
to them instruction suited to their exigencies ; and 
at the meeting of this Presbytery at Barnwell, in 
April, 1847, a formal sanction was afforded to this 
practice by the extension of its approval and patron- 
age to a scheme, contemplating the establishment of 
a separate congregation of blacks of the Second 
Presbyterian church in Charleston. 

" The reasons for the collection of the colored peo- 
ple into distinct congregations have been ably stated 
by Eev. J. B. Adger in a sermon preached in Charles- 
ton, May 9th, 1817, and by Rev. Dr. Thornwell, in a 
critical notice of this discourse, published shortly af- 
ter its deliver}^ in the Southeryi Presbyterian Be- 
vlew. The want of room in all our church edifices, 
the necessity of a style of instruction adapted to the 
capacities and attainments of the colored population, 
and their destitute and neglected condition, under 
the pressm-e of powerful temptations, constitute co- 
gent arguments in favor of the erection of separate 
congregations for their benefit. It cannot be denied 
that there are great advantages resulting from the 
union of masters and servants in the solemn offices 



160 Plantation Life 

of religion — advantages secured by the conviction 
produced by this association of a common origin, a 
common relation to God, and a common interest in 
the great scheme of redemption through the blood 
of Christ. But the question, as has been observed, 
was soon found to be * partial separation or a partial 
diffusion of the gospel among the slaves, and an en- 
larged philanthropy prevailed over sentiment/ It 
ought to be kept in mind that this separation into 
distinct congregations does not amount to a compul- 
sory or total exclusion of the servants from access to 
the churches in -which their masters worship. They 
are at liberty to associate with them in worship 
whenever they will, while these edifices and religious 
services, intended especially for their benefit, are 
standing invitations to those among them for whose 
welfare no man cares, to participate in the blessings 
provided by the gospel. It is also to be remembered 
that a complete separation cannot, and in fact does 
not, take place under this plan, inasmuch as it con- 
templates the presence of some white persons — a 
measure, indeed, made necessary by civil statutes. 
As, therefore, servants are not debarred from wor- 
shiping at pleasure with their masters, as it is ex- 



Before Emancipation. 161 

pected that in all their assemblages white persons 
should be present, and as these congregations are 
served by white ministers, themselves responsible to 
ecclesiastical courts representing large sections of the 
"community, it is next to impossible that a class wor- 
ship — as it is frequently objected — should be the re- 
sult of the enforcement of this scheme, or that it 
should tend to foster feeling^s of insubordination and 
aggravate the prejudices of caste, by connecting them 
with the institutions of rehgion." 

How far this remarkable and successful experi- 
ment of a separate organization in j)art of colored 
people, officered entirely by white persons, would, 
liad our ci\nl war not intervened, have won its way 
into the dense mass of the slave population, and to 
what extent it would have shaped southern evan- 
gelization of the negi'o, it were idle now to speculate. 
Besides, its great success in winning from among 
them scores of precious souls for Christ, the history 
is important and valuable as furnishing another 
striking proof of the southern slaveholders' fidelity 
to the hiofhest interests of the slave. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF ANOTHER MIS- 
SIONARY TO THE BLACKS. 

Bev. Dr. Mallard: 

MY Dear Brother, — I hardly know how to com- 
municate personal reminiscences. They would 
be numerous and detailed. Perhaps I had better 
not enter the edge of the forest. But I adventure a 
few which may be of some use to you ; if not, thi'ow 
them out. Of course you do not expect to mention 
my name. 

I remember that before I became a preacher, I 
used to hold meetings on my father's plantation, the 
cotton house affording a convenient place of assem- 
blage. Previously, the plantation I'esounded with the 
sounds of jollity — the merrj' strains of the fiddle, the 
measured beat of the "quaw sticks," and the rhyth- 
mical shuffling and patting of the feet in the Ethio- 
pian jig. Now, the fiddle and the quaw sticks were 
abandoned, and the light, carnal song gave way to 

162 



Plantation Life. 163 

psalms and hymns. The congregations were numer- 
ous and attentive, and a genuine revival of religion 
seemed to obtain. I can never forget with what en- 
thusiasm they used to sing their own improvised 
'''spiritual : " 

•*My brother, you promised Jesus, 
My brother, you promised Jesus, 
My brother, you promised Jesus, 

To either fight or die. 
Oh, I wish I was there, 
To hear my Jesus' orders, 
Oh, I wish I was there, Lord, 

To wear my starry crown. " 

On another plantation which I was in the habit 
of visiting, a prayer-meeting was commenced by one 
or two young men, which became more and more 
solemn, until the religions interest grew intense, and 
a powerful revival took place, which involved the 
white family and their neighbors. The results of 
that meeting were marked, and some of its fruits re- 
main to this day. If ever I witnessed an out-pour- 
ing of the Spirit, I did then. 

WTiile teaching school in another place, it was my 
custom to visit plantations in rotation, on certain af- 



164 Plantation Life 

temoons of the week, and catechise and exhort the 
slaves. I knew of but one planter in that commu- 
nity who objected to this practice, and he was an ir- 
rehgious man. On Sabbath, after the regular ser- 
vices of the sanctuary had been held, and the white 
congregation had dispersed, the negroes would crowd 
the church building, and, standing on the pulpit 
steps, I would address them. Their feelings, some- 
times, were irrepressible. This was with the sanc- 
tion of the minister and elders. 

While at the Theological Seminary, I only re- 
frained from going on a foreign mission because I 
felt it to be my duty to preach to the mass of slaves 
on the sea-board of South CaroHna. Having rejected, 
after licensure, a call to a large and important church 
which had very few negroes connected with it, I ac- 
cepted an invitation to preach temporarily to a small 
church which was surrounded by a dense body of 
slaves. The scenes on Sabbath were affecting. The 
negroes came in crowds from two parishes. Often 
have I seen (a scene, I reckon, not often witnessed) 
groups of them "double quicking" in the roads, in 
order to reach the church in time. Trotting to 
church! The v^liite service (as many negroes as 



Befoee Emancipation. 165 

could atteiiding) being over, the slaves would pour 
in and tlirong tlie seats vacated by tlieir masters — 
yes, crowd the building up to the pulpit. I have 
seen them rock to and fro under the influence of 
their feelings, like a wood in a storm. TMiat sing- 
ing! What hearty handshakings after the ser- 
vice ! I have had my finger joints stripped of the 
scarf skin in consequence of them. Upon leading 
the church, after the last mournful service with 
them, and going to my vehicle, which was some 
hundred yards distant, a poor little native African 
woman followed me, weeping and crying out : " O, 
massa, you goin' to leave us ? O, massa, for Jesus' 
sake, don't leave us !" I had made an engagement 
with another church, or the poor little African's i^lea 
might have prevailed. When next I visited that 
people, I asked after my Httle African friend. *' She 
crossed over, sir," was the answer. May we meet 
" when parting will be no more, the song to Jesus 
never cease!" 

The church to which I next went was in a differ- 
ent part of the sea-board of South Carolina. In 
connection with it, I was ordained, and here my 
work began in earnest. The congregation included 



166 Plantation Lite 

some of the most cultivated gentlemen of the State. 
They were cordially in favor of the religious instruc- 
tion of the slaves. The work among them consisted 
of preaching to them on Sabbath noons, in the church 
building in whichtheir masters had just worshiped, 
preaching to them again in the afternoons on the 
plantations, and preaching at night, to mixed con- 
gregations of whites and blacks. This in summer. 
In winter, I preached at night on the plantations, 
often reaching home after midnight. Many a time 
I have seen the slaves gathered on their master's 
piazzas for worship, and when it was very cold, in 
their dining-rooms and their sitting-rooms. The 
family and the servants would worship together. 
This was common, and the fact deserves to be sig- 
nalized. In order better to compass the work, I se- 
lected four points in the congregational territory, 
the diameter of which was about twenty miles in one 
direction, and purposed to secure the erection of 
meeting-houses which would each be central to 
several plantations, in order to economize labor and 
bring the gospel more frequently in contact with 
the people, by preaching once a month, on Sab- 
baths, at those jDoints, This plan was prevented of 



Before Emancipation. 167 

accomplisliinent by my remova,! to the missionary 
-work in Cliaiieston. It is curious that after the war 
the colored people erected houses of worship at 
those Terr points. 

My last service with the negroes at this church I 
wdll never forget. The final words had been spoken 
to the white congregation, and they had retired. 
When a tempest of emotion was shaking me behind 
the desk, the tramp of a great multitude was heard 
as the negroes poured into the building, and occu- 
pied all available space up to the little old wine-glass 
shaped pulpit. "WTien approaching the conclusion of 
the sermon, I turned to the unconverted, asked what 
I should say to them, and called on them to come to 
Jesus. At this moment the great mass of the con- 
gregation simultaneously broke down, dropped their 
heads to their knees, and uttered a wail which 
seemed to prelude the judgment. Poor people ! 
they had deeply appreciated the preaching of the 
gospel to them. 

Into the details of the work in Charleston I can- 
not enter. They would occupy too much sjDace. It 
lasted (with me) from 1854 to 1862. I have some- 
times thoucrht I devoted too much time to it. I was 



168 Plantation Life 

absorbed in it. But the labor was not in vain, I 
trust. Besides Sabbath preaching, most of the nights 
in the week were spent at the church in the dis- 
charge of various duties — holding prayer-meetings, 
catechising classes, administering discipline, settling 
difficulties and performing marriage ceremonies. 
Often have I sat for over an hour in a cold room, in- 
structing individual inquirers and candidates for 
membership ; often have I risen in the night to visit 
the sick and dying and administer baptism to ill 
children. I made it a duty to attend all their fu- 
nerals and conduct them. 

Just two extreme instances of dying experience I 
■will give you. One was that of a servant of a dis- 
tinguished judge. He was dying. As I entered 
his room, he rubbed his hands together and chuckled 
with a hilarious delight, like that of a boy going 
home on Christmas Eve, and exclaimed : " I'm going 
home ! Oh, how glad I am !" So he passed away. 
Another was that of my own servant. He was reared 
by me ; was a bad boy ; when he grew up, attended 
my church, professed conversion, and was seized not 
very long after with galloping consumption. He 
•was in terror. His sins filled him with dismay. I 



EeFOEE E3IANCn>ATI0N. 1G9 

labored T^ith liim, but lie refused to be comforted. 
At last, not long before Lis departure, tlie light of 
God's reconciled countenance broke upon the mid- 
night of his soul. From that time he had perfect 
peace, and breathed his last, I firmly beheve, on the 
bosom of his Saviour. Freely did my tears flow 
while I was uttering the last words of prayer and 
exhortation over his encoffined body. His mother, 
also my servant, died after him, during the war, 
when I was absent in Virginia. She kept calling for 
me till she expired. Tell me that there was no true, 
deep affection of masters to slaves, and slaves to mas- 
ters ! It was often hke that between near relatives. 

The most glorious work of grace I ever felt or 
witnessed was one which occurred in 1858, in con- 
nection with this missionary work in Charleston. It 
began with a remarkable exhibition of the Spirit's 
supernatural power. For eight weeks, night after 
night, save Saturday nights, I preached to dense 
and deeply-moved congregations. The result I 
have given in the general statement prefixed. 

The work steadily and rapidly grew, until it was 
arrested by the war. I couJd give you some inci- 
dents that would be interesting;-, but time will not 



170 Plantation Lq'E 

permit. One I mention, in which the ludicrous and 
pathetic were blended, and the saying was fulfilled, 
that the fountains of laughter and tears are near to 
each other. After a session had been formed, there 
came before it for admission into the church a small 
native African, whose name was Cudjo. The follow- 
ing colloquy occurred between the minister and the 
candidate: "Cudjo, you want to jom the church?" 
" YessY, massa," " Cudjo, you love Jesus ? " " Yessy, 
massa; me lub Jesus." 'Cudjo, you expect to see 
Jesus ? " '"Oh, yessy, massa ; me spec I's see Jesus." 
"When he sees you coming, what do you think Jesus 
will say?" "He say, "Cudjo, you come?' I say, 
* Yess}^, ma'am, I come. ' " Here he struck his hands 
together, and the session laughed and cried at the 
same time. 

The conduct of this church after the war justified 
the wisdom of those who projected it. They clung 
to the white people. One of the first invitations in 
writmg which I received upon my return from im- 
prisonment at Johnson's Island, and while yet in 
the interior of the State, where my family were 
refugees, in July, 1865, to resume labor, was from 
this colored membership, entreating me to come 



Before Emancipation. 171 

back and preach to them as of old. For years they 
declined to separate themselves from the Southern 
Presbyterian Church, and even after its Assembly 
had, in 1874, recommended an organic separation 
of the whites and blacks, they continued to main- 
tain an independent position. Only at a late date 
did they resolve to connect themselves with the 
Northern Presbyterian Chnrch. But I must close, 
lest I tire you. 

I am, dear brother, yours in the Lord, 

* * * 

I make no apology for giving the above letter just 
as it was written, in response to my request for per- 
sonal reminiscences of work among the blacks. It 
was not in my heart to alter a word or suppress a 
Hne of that which I have not been able to read a 
single time without tears. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE FIB8T SOUTHERN GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 

•FIEST DAY. 

"Augusta, Ga., Dec. 4, 1861. 
' ' The First General Assembly of tlie Presbyterian Church 
in the Confederate States met on this clay, at 11 o'clock, in 
the First Presbyterian Church. " 

SUCH is tlie opening- sentence of the minutes oi 
that memorable body, in which our distinctive 
existence as a church began, as reported in the Au- 
gusta Chronicle and SentiJiel y for the use of which 
I am indebted to the courtesy of Rev. Dr. J. H. 
Bryson, of Huntsville, Ala. 

It "was an epoch pregnant with important events 
in church and state. We j)ause to rapidly sketch 
them. South Carolina, seceding from the Union, 
had been swiftly followed, and in the order here 
named, by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, 
and Louisiana. These seven States, meeting by 

chosen representatives in Montgomery, Ala., had 
172 



Befose E^iaxcipation. 173 

formed a provisional government for one year, to 
become thereafter permanent and upon the model 
of that from which they had withdrawn. In April 
the guns of Fort Sumter opened the fight. Lincoln 
had then thrown down the gauge of battle in his 
call for 75,000 men; the Confederate Government 
iiad accepted it, in its summons for volunteers. 
Four more States, halting before, now wheeled into 
hne — Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Ten- 
nessee — eleven in all. 

With a daring hopefulness, the capital was now 
transferred to Eichmond, Va. In the first serious 
trial of strengih at Manassas, the Confederate ai'ms 
had triumphed; other and less important engage- 
ments had marked the first year of the war, the 
most notable being Price's success at Oak Hill. In 
his summing up of the year, Alexander Stephens, 
in his School History, says: "The contest upon the 
whole, thus far, was greatly to the advantage of the 
Confederates, in view of the number of victories 
achieved and prisoners captured." The enemy had, 
however,, effected a lodgment upon the Atlantic 
coast of the young Confederacy, by the reduction of 
the forts at Hatteras Inlet, N. C, and Port Eoyal, 



174 Plantation Life 

S. C. Fired by accident, tlie heart of Charleston 
was then being burnt out by a great conflagration. 

In the midst of these exciting events, with the 
capital threatened by a powerful Northern army, a 
beautiful Southern city on fire, the white tents of 
the foe dotting the shores of an adjoining State, and 
war ships, like watch dogs, guarding all the coast, 
the delegates appointed by the Southern Presbyte- 
ries met to form a Southern General Assembly. In 
the judgment of most of the commissioners, the sep- 
aration of the States into two republics, rendered 
desirable, if not compulsory, two separate churches. 
But there were other and more imperious causes. 
The celebrated " Spring resolutions" had made it 
impossible for a Southerner to be at once loyal to 
his government and his church. Bev. "William Ba- 
ker, a Southerner, present at the Northern General 
Assembly the previous spring, in Philadelphia, had 
accounted for the scantiness of the delegation from 
the South by the poverty of its ministers. It is cer- 
tain that some refused to attend because of the dan- 
ger, and others because they saw that sepai'ation of 
state involved separation of church. 

A convention of delegates had previously met in 



BeFOEE EilANCrPATION. 175 

Atlanta, Ga , and invited the Presbyteries at their 
then approaching fall meetings to appoint commis- 
sioners to meet in Augusta, Ga , to form a General 
Assembly. Meeting at the time appointed. Rev. 
Dr. John N. 'V\'addel, "who, in conjunction with Txex. 
Dr. John H. Gray and Professor Joseph. Jones, of 
Augusta, Ga., had been selected by a majority of 
the Presbyteries "to act as a committee of commis- 
sioners," nominated Eev. Dr. Francis McFarland as 
temporary presiding ofncer. Elected by acclama- 
tion, by his nomination Eev. Dr. B. M. Palmer was 
unanimously selected to preach the opening sermon, 
and at the next session was elected Moderator by 
acclamation. 

Present as a visitor in attendance upon Dev. Dr. 
Charles Colcock Jones, then an invahd, but a com- 
missioner from the Presbytery of Georgia, I was an 
eye-witness of what I now proceed with pleasure to 
describe and relate. 

The place of the first General Assembly was well 
chosen. Augusta, sitting a queen upon the winding 
Savannah, on the line between two great common- 
wealths, and central to the entire Confederacy, was, 
by its location, its proverbial culture and hospitality. 



176 Plantation Life 

and its handsome First clmrcli embowered in its 
shady grove — a fitting birthplace for the new Pres- 
byterian church. 

The 2^^'>"^onnel of the Assembl}^ was remarkable. 
The Presbyteries, realizing the gravity of the situa- 
tion, had sent their oldest, wisest, most experienced, 
and, in a word, most suitable men. Without attempt- 
ing to exhaust the list, let me call over some of the 
names upon its roll, of its men illustrious in divinity 
and law. The Synod of Alabama sent such men as 
Rev. Alexander McCorkle, Pt. B. "White, D. D.; Elder 
Hon. W. B. Webb. Arkansas— Pev. Thos. R. 
Welsh and the venerable missionaiy, C. Kingsbury, 
D. D. From the Synod of Baltimore came John H. 
Bocock, D. D., Wm. H. Foote, D. D., and Hon. J. 
D. Armstrong. Georgia sent N. A. Pratt, D. D., 
John S. Wilson, D. D., C. C. Jones, D. D., Joseph 
R. Wilson, D. B., and Elders David Ardis, Hon. 
Wm. A. Forward and Wm. L. Mitchell. Memphis — 
John N. Waddel, D. D., and Hon. J. T. Swayne. 
Mississipi)i — John Hunter, B. B., B. M. Palmer, 
B. B., James A. Lyon, B. B., Pev. R. Mclnnis, and 
Elders W^m. C. Black and David Hadden. Nash- 
viUe— R. B. McMuUen, B. B. North Carolina— R. 



Before Emancu ation. 177 

H. Morrison, D. D., K Hett Chapman, D. D., Drury 
Lacy, T>. D., and Elders Prof. Charles Phillips and 
Hon. J. G. Sheperd. South Carolina — James H. 
Thornwell, D. D., Aaron W. Leland, D. D., J. Leigh- 
tan Wilson, D. D., John B. Adger, D. D., D. Mc- 
Neill Turner, and Elders Hon. W. Pen'onneau Fin- 
ley, J. S. Thompson, Hon. Thomas C. Perrin and 
Chancellor Job Johnstone. Synod of Texas — B. W. 
Bailey, D. D., and Eev. E. F. Bunting. SjTiod of 
Virginia — Theodorick Pryor, D. D., Francis McFar- 
land, D. D , James B. Ramsa}^, D. D., Samuel E. 
Houston, Peyton HaiTison, Professor John L. Camp- 
bell, Hon. W. F. C. Gregory, etc. 

Although to an uncommon extent composed of 
men entitled by their ability, years, experience and 
prominence in church and state to lead, there v:a.s 
an entii'e absence of a domineering spii'it, and the 
utmost freedom of debate, in which there was a gen- 
eral participation. Even that prince of men, of 
scholars and theologians, Eev. Dr. Thornwell, with 
all his acknowledged leadership, did not always 
carry his poiDt, and shaped the actions of the Assem- 
bly by the masterly ability with which he advocated 
his views of the topics discussed, rather than by his 



178 Plantation Life 

powerful pei'sonal influence. Never were ecclesiastical 
■debates abler, as might have been anticipated from 
the material composing this General Assembly. Sit- 
ting in the midst of a war of tremendous proportions, 
with their homes threatened by invasion, and sons, 
relatives and friends exposed to the deadly hazard 
of battle, these servants of God spent eleven days in 
deliberately discussing the problems presented by 
the times for adjustment, and in perfecting the or- 
ganization of the infant church. By their wise 
counsels, that church was \3r0vided with all the re- 
quisite machinery of executive committees ; commit- 
tees, in accordance with the views of Dr. Thornwell, 
so long and ably advocated by him, in direct rela- 
tionship to the General Assembly, taking the place 
of cumbrous, irresponsible boards. To an executive 
committee, located in New Orleans, the Indian mis- 
sion, the only part of the foreign field to which the 
blockade permitted access, was transferred without 
a jar; and provision made for the transmission of 
funds to such southern missionaries outside the 
L'nited States as wished to retain their connection 
with our church. 

What was determined with regard to the negro 



Befoee Emancipation. 179 

race, which occupied a large part of the time and 
atteDtion of this General Assembly, is reserved fur 
the next letter. 

Thus om* beloved church sprang into existence, 
like Minerva from Jupiter's brain, full statured and 
in complete panoplj ; or, rather, came into being, 
and by the same creative word as the first Adam 
did, not a feeble infant, but a strong and grown-up 
man 

Characterized throughout In' a prayerful spirit, 
which seemed, together with the felt gravity of the 
times, to have repressed every exciting allusion to 
political and national affairs, this remarkable As- 
sembly, having finished its appointed task, the Mod- 
erator announced that there was no further business 
before it; whereupon, a member. Dr. McMullen, 
arose and said: "Brethren, the Lord has blessed 
us in an extraordinary degi'ee. The unanimity and 
cordiahty with which everything has been transacted 
seems to me to be very remai'kable, and it would be 
to me very gratifying if we could spend an hour this 
evening in devotional exercises ; it would be a de- 
hghtful closing of this Assembly." 

The venerable Dr. Leland, thereupon, slowly ris- 



180 Plaittation Life 

ing to liis feet, observed: "It becomes ns to adopt 
that proposition and to meet at seven o'clock. Let 
us tliis night acknowledge the good hand of God 
upon us. I do not feel as if we could separate by 
any sudden adjournment. The best feeling of every 
heart of this Assembly will be greatly cheered by 
such a mode of terminating our deliberations. Let 
us close these meetings with feelings of love and 
kindness." 

Dr. McFarland immediately responded : " That 
w^ould, indeed, be very pleasant to me. I do trust 
that we may part with feelings of love and gratitude 
to Almighty God, such as we never felt before, and 
that the Moderator (Dr. Palmer), may carry our 
hearts as one heart up to the heavenly throne. 

Said Dr. Piyor: "I think the suggestion of Dr. 
McMuUen eminently proper, and I rise for the pur- 
pose of seconding his motion." 

The motion adopted, the Assembly coming to- 
gether in the evening, after the transaction of some 
matters of business occupying only a few minutes, 
closed its deliberations by one entire session devoted 
to worship with the congregation. The 508th hjmn 
was sung, prayer offered l)y Dr. McFarland, Romans 



J3ZP0KE Emancipation. 181 

TiiL was read, the 580th hj-mii sung-, when the Mod- 
erator, Eev. Dr. Palmer, rose and said : 

" Mj brethren, the fulness of this Assembly, drawn 
from all parts of our extended Confederacy, during 
"a season of extraordinary peril and darkness, is suf- 
ficient proof that all our hearts were impressed with 
the importance of this convention. The discussions 
through which we have passed, during the session of 
this Assembly, have opened the fundamental princi- 
ples of our government, and, to some extent, of our 
faith. And that we have been able to set this church 
forward fuUy equipped, and in doing so to uncover 
all these principles, and to do it without a jar, is a 
sufficient proof that we have enjoyed the guidance of 
God's Spirit. The fact, too, that we have been led 
to open our hearts towards our brethren of the great 
Presbyterian family who are not gathered under the 
same roof with ourselves, opening in the near future 
the prospect of reunion with those of like faith witli 
ourselves, is an additional proof that our heai'ts have 
been moved by the Spirit of grace. And now wo 
are to part ; and as we extend the hand of parting, 
there will scarcely be an eye that will not moisten, 
scarcely a heart that will not thi'ob ; we are made to 



182 PiANTATiOx^T Life. 

feel, as we return to our several homes, that it has 
been indeed a privilege to come up here as to a 
mount of ordinances. Our language v^ill be the lan- 
guage of Peter to his Master on the mount : ' Lord, 
it is good for us to be here.' " 

To this Dr. Piyor responded : "I rise. Moderator, 
to move that this Assembly be now dissolved. We 
part to meet no more in this world, but it is pleasant 
to feel that there is a land where we shall meet 
again — 

• There, on a green and flowery mount, 

Our liappy sauls shall meet, 
And with transporting joy recount 
The labors of our feet. ' " 

The 342d hymn was then sung, and with prayer 
and benediction by the Moderator, the memorable 
first Southern General Assembly was dissolved, and 
another like it appointed to meet in Memphis the 
first Thursday in May, 1862. 



CHAPTER XXL 

THE FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND THE 
NEGRO; ITS MANIFESTO ON THE SUBJECT 
TO THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

WHATEVER may have been the causes of sece?- 
sion and our civil war, it must be admitted 
that African slavery was the occasion of both. 
Although it would not be correct to say that the 
one side fought for the destruction and the other 
for the preservation of this peculiar institution, its 
abolition or continuance was, as the event showed, 
wrapped up in the issues of the war. The first 
General Assembly was composed of men who, 
whether of Northern or Southern birth, were al- 
most, without exception, slaveholders, sincerely con- 
vinced of the scripturalness of slavery. 

It was with no uncertainty as to their position that 
this grave and learned and pious assembly of min- 
isters and elders approached the question of the 

more thorough evangelization of their negro slaves. 
183 



184 Plantation Life. 

Lighted up by the lurid flames of a civil war, the 
question seemed to have taken on a new interest 
and assumed larger proportions. "With one accord 
the Assembly seemed to have felt that, in the peril- 
ous circumstances surrounding the institution as 
well as themselves, and the conspicuousness thus 
given to the Southern Church before the world, 
there was a special providential call for renewed and 
intelligent efforts for the salvation of that people, 
who had now grown in thirty years from two to 
four milhons ! 

Passing by the incidental references, I shall con- 
fine myself to its dehberate utterances upon the 
whole subject, as they were given in the address to 
all the churches of Jesus Christ throughout the 
world, prepared by Dr. Thornwell, and in Dr. C. C. 
Jones' discourse to the Assembly itself upon the 
evangelization of the negro. 

On the morning of the second day of the ses- 
sion, the following resolution was introduced by Dr. 
Thornwell, and adopted: 

"JResolved, That a committee, consisting of one 
minister and one ruling elder from each of the 
Synods belonging to this Assembly, be appointed 



Before Emancipation. 185 

to prepare an address to all the churches of Jesus 
Christ throughout the earth, setting forth the cause 
of our separation from the Church in the United 
States, our attitude in relation to slavery, and a 
general view of the policy which, as a church, we 
propose to follow." (Italics mine.) 

That committee, appointed by Dr. Palmer, the 
Moderator, in the same session, contained the fol- 
lowing distinguished names: James H. Thornwell, 
D. D., Theodoric Pryor, D. D., F. K. Nash, C. C. 
Jones, D. D., R B. White, T>. D., W. D. Moore, J. 
H. Gillespie, J. L. Boozer, E. W. Bailey, D. D., J. 
D. Armstrong, C. PhilHj^s, Joseph A. Brooks, W. P. 
Finley, Samuel McCorkle, W. P. Webb, William C. 
Black, T. L. Dunlap, and E. W. Wright. 

On the eighth day their report, taken up from 
the docket, was, without debate or a dissenting 
voice, adopted as the utterance of the Southern 
Church, and under the following resolutions 

" Resolved, That the Address to the Churches of 
Jesus Christ throughout the world, reported and 
read by Pev. Dr. Thornwell, chairman of the spe- 
cial committee appointed for that purpose, be re- 
ceived, and is hereby adopted by this Assembly. 



186 Plantation Life 

" Jiesolvedj That three thousand copies of thia 
address be printed, under the direction of the Stated 
Clerk, for the use of the Assembly. 

^^ Resolved, That the original address be filed in 
the archives of the Assembly, and that a paper be 
attached thereto, to be signed by the Moderator 
aaid members of this Assembly." 

It was a deeply interesting spectacle when, at the 
calHng of the Assembly's roll, each member ap- 
proached the Clerk's desk and signed his name to 
this magnificent state paper, which bears the stamp 
of the acute intellect and broad genius of the chair- 
man. Dr. Thornwell. We can afford space for only 
a few extracts from this historical document, and 
only upon the attitude of the Southern Church 
toward slavery: 

"And here we may venture to lay before the 
Christian world our views as a church upon the 
subject of slavery. 

" In the first place, we would have it distinctly 
understood that, in our ecclesiastical capacity, we 
are neither the friends nor the foes of slavery ; that 
is to say, we have no commission either to propa- 
gate or abolish it. The poHcy of its existence or 



Before Emancipation. 187 

non-existence is a question which belongs exclu- 
sively to the state. We have no right to enjoin it 
as a duty, or to condemn it as a sin. Our business 
is with the duties which spring from the relation; 
the duties of the master on the one hand, and of 
their slaves on the other. These duties we are to 
proclaim and to enforce with spiritual sanctions. 
The social, civil, political problems connected with 
this great subject transcend our sphere, as God 
has not entrusted to his church the organization of 
society, the construction of governments, nor the 
allotment of individuals to their various stations. 
The church has as much right to preach to the 
monarchies of Europe and the despotisms of Asia 
the doctrines of republican equality, as to preach to 
the government of the South the extirpation of 
slavery. The position is impregnable, unless it 
can be proved that slavery is a sin. Upon every 
other hypothesis it is so clearly a question of state, 
that the proposition would never for a moment have 
been doubted had there not been a foregone con- 
clusion in relation to its moral character. 

" Is slaveiy a sin ? 

"In answering this question as a chui'ch, let it 



188 Plantation Life 

be distinctly borne in mind that the only rule 
of judgment is the written Word of God. The 
church knows nothing of the intuitions of reason, 
or the deductions of philosophy, except those repro- 
duced in the sacred canon. She has a positive 
constitution in the Holy Scriptures, and has no 
right to utter a syllable upon any subject, except as 
the Lord puts words in her mouth. She is founded, 
in other words, upon express revelation. Her creed 
is an authoritative testimony of God, and not a 
speculation , and what she proclaims she must pro- 
claim with the infallible certainty of faith, and not 
with the hesitating assent of an opinion. The ques- 
tion, then, is brought within a narrow compass. 
Do the Scriptures, directly or indirectly, condemn 
slavery as a sin? If they do not, the dispute is 
ended, for the church, without forfeiting her char- 
acter, dares not go beyond them. If men had 
drawn their conclusions on this subject only from 
the Bible, it would no more have entered into any 
human head to denounce slavery as a sin, than to 
denounce monarchy, or aristocracy, or j^overty. The 
truth is, men have listened to what they falsely con- 
sider as primitive intuitions, or as necessary deduc- 



Before Eaiancipation. 189 

tions from primitive cognitions, and then have gone 
to the Bible to confirm the crotchets of their vain 
philosophy. They have gone there determined to 
find a particular result, and the consequence is that 
they leave with having made, instead of having in- 
terpreted. Scripture. Slavery is no new thing. It 
has not only existed for ages in the world, -but it 
has existed under every dispensation of the cove- 
nant of grace in the church of God. Indeed, the 
first organization of the chui'ch as a visible society 
separate and distinct from the unbelieving world, 
was inaugm-ated in the family of a slaveholder. 
Among the very fii'st persons to whom the seal of 
circumcision was affixed, were the slaves of the 
father of the faithful, some born in his house and 
some bought with his money. Slaver}'' again ap- 
pears under the law. God sanctions it in the fii'st 
table of the Decalogue, and Moses treats it as an 
institution to be regulated, not abolished; legiti- 
mated, not condemned. We come dovm to the age 
of the New Testament, and we find it again in the 
churches founded by the apostles, under the plenary 
inspiration of the Holy Ghost. These facts are 
utterly amazing, if slavery is the enormous sin which 



190 Plantation Life 

its enemies represent it to be. It mil not do to say 
that the Scriptures have treated it only in a general 
and incidental way, without any clear implication as 
to its moral character. Moses surely made it the 
subject of exjDress and positive legislation, and the 
apostles are equally explicit in inculcating the duties 
which spring from both sides of the relation. They 
treat slaves as bound to obey, and inculcate obedi- 
ence as an office of religion — a thing wholly self- 
contradictors', if the authority over them were un- 
lawful and iniquitous. 

" But what puts the subject in a still clearer light, 
is the manner in which it is sought to extort from 
the Scriptures a contrary testimony. The notion of 
an expHcit and direct condemnation is given up. 
The attempt is to show that the genius and spirit of 
Christianity are opposed to it ; that its great cardinal 
principles of virtue are against it. Much stress is 
laid upon the Golden Rule, and upon the general 
denunciations of tyranny and oppression. To aE 
this we reply, that no principle is clearer than that 
a case positively excepted cannot be included under 
a general rule. Let us concede for a moment that 
the laws of love and the condemnation of tyranny 



Before Emancipation. 191 

and oppression seem logically to involve, as a result, 
the condemnation of slavery ; yet if slavery is after- 
wards expressly mentioned and treated as a lawful 
relation, it obviously follows, unless Scripture is to 
be interpreted as inconsistent with itself, that slav- 
ery is by necessary implication excepted. To say 
that the prohibition of tyranny and oppression in- 
clude slavery, is to beg the whole question. Tyranny 
and oppression involve either the unjust usurpation 
of, or the unlawful exercise of, power. It is the un- 
lawfulness in its principle or measure, which consti- 
tutes the core of the sin. Slavery, therefore, must 
be proved to be unlawful, before it can be referred 
to any such category. The master, indeed, may 
abuse his power, but he oppresses not simply as a 
master, but as a wicked master. 

" But apart from all this, the law of love is simply 
the inculcation of universal equity. It imphes no- 
thing as to the existence of various ranks and grada- 
tions in society. The interpretation which makes it 
repudiate slavery would make it equally repudiate 
all social, civil and political inequalities. Its mean- 
ing is, not that we should conform ourselves to the 
arbitrary expectations of others, but that we should 



192 Plantation Life 

render unto them precisely the same measure which, 
if we were in their circumstance, it would be reason- 
able and just in us to demand at their hands. It 
condemns slavery, therefore, only upon the supposi- 
tion that slaveiy is a sinful relation ; that is, he who 
extracts the prohibition of slavery from the Golden 
Rule begs the very point in disjDute. 

"AVe cannot pursue the argument in detail, but 
we have said enough, we think, to vindicate the jDosi- 
tion of the Southern Church." 

I add to the argument one single sentence more 
from this splendid vindication of the position of our 
Southern Presbyterian Church : " We feel that the 
souls of our slaves are a solemn trust, and we shall 
strive to present them faultless and complete before 
the presence of God." 

Here I must, j!?er/orce, stop in my quotations from 
this able paper, in which one knows not which 
most to admire, the logic or the rhetoric, the reason- 
ing or the piety. Let it now be recalled that the 
entire Assembly affixed their signatures publicly to 
this document; as well, the venerable Br. A. "W. 
Leland, of northern birth; "a southerner," as he 
well expressed it once in a time of great excitement 



Before Emancipation. 103 

in South Carolina, " a southerner not of necessity as 
one born in that section, but by choice," and Rev. 
Dr. James H. Thornwell, a southron by descent, 
birth, and in every fibre of his being. Some \vould 
say, "Why write of a dead issue? To this we make 
answer: Truth never dies, for it has the years of 
God, the immortahty of its Author. What was 
scriptural and therefore right before the war, is both 
still. God has in his providence abolished African 
slavery, because he saw fit, aud because his Word 
always taught, as the southerner believed, that, other 
things being equal, " to be free is better." But Di- 
vine Providence is not in conflict with the Dirine 
Word. Tried by the Bible, slaveiy was not sin, nor 
southern slaveholders sinners because of it. And 
there is something inspiiing in that conviction of 
right which enabled these hundred or more ministers 
and elders to stand immovable in the tossing bil- 
lows of that dreadful conflict which was occasioned 
by, and resulted (with the regrets of none) in the 
abolition of American slavery in America. 



CHAPTEE XXII. 

THE FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND THE 
NEQRO-THE ADDRESS OF DR. JONES ON 
THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF NEGROES, 

THE last appearance, I believe, of the "Apostle 
to tlie Blacks," as, in a former letter, Rev. Dr. 
Charles Colcock Jones was styled, in any ecclesiasti- 
cal body, was before that convened in Augusta, Ga., 
in 1861. " Perhaps I shall not be with you, brethren, 
next year," he had said, in excusing himself from 
the chairmanship of an important committee, ap- 
pointed to report to the next Assembly. He never 
went to another, imtil he was summoned by the 
angel of death to "the general assembly of the 
firstborn, which are written in Heaven." 

Appointed chairman of the Committee of Domes- 
tic Missions, he used this language on the subject 
ever near to his heart : " That the great field of mis- 
sionary operations among the colored population falls 
17 194 



Plantation Lite. 195 

more particularly under the care of the Committee 
of Domestic Missions ; and that committee be urged 
to give it serious and earnest attention, and the 
Presbyteries to co-operate with it in seeming pas- 
tors and missionaries for the field." 

This last suggestion was made the special order 
for discussion on the evening of December 10th ; and 
Dr. Jones invited to address the Assembly upon the 
subject. "We state, in passing, that in the debate 
which followed, it was resolved that a pastoral letter 
be prepai'ed upon the subject, to be reported for ac- 
tion to the next General Assembly, the chairmanship 
of which Dr. Jones, on the plea of ill-health, as be- 
fore stated, decHned. His Address the Assembly 
directed to be pubhshed. I have in my bound vol- 
ume of pamphlets a copy of it. It has not lost its 
power to stir my soul, although committed for a 
quarter century to the cold custody of the printed 
page ; its effect at the time of its deliveiy was mar- 
velous. Let an eye-witness describe the occasion and 
the address. 

The large audience-room of the beautiful church 
was filled from pulpit to door by commissioners 
and people. The speaker, as he walked up the aisle, 



196 Plantation Life 

by the feebleness of his gait, and somewhat bowed 
form, created the impression of age which was not 
confirmed by his short-cropped light hair, with 
scarcely a silver thread, and his noble, intellectual, 
spiritual and benevolent face, without a seam or 
wrinkle. Unable, from weakness, produced by a 
wasting palsy, to stand, he took the position in our 
Lord's day assigned the teacher. Sitting, but with 
free use of arms and hands, in impressive gesture, 
he held the immense audience spell-bound, in al- 
most absolute stillness, for an hour and a half, while 
he plead for the souls of the poor slaves, to whose 
salvation his noble life, now rapidly, as he and we 
well knew, drawing to its close, had been conse- 
crated. Back of the speaker there was what the 
old rhetoricians laid down as an essential of true 
oratory — character. The audience saw before them 
one, of whom a fellow-commissioner. Rev. Dr. B. M. 
Palmer, has recently used this language, in the obit- 
uary of his only daughter : " Her distinguished fa- 
ther, it need not be told, by his intellectual strength 
and culture, and still more by the majesty of his 
character, acquired the highest distinction which 
could be conferred in the church which he served. 



Before Emancipation. 197 

He was twice called to the chair of history and polity 
in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, S. C, and 
then to discharge the important function of Secre- 
tary of Home Missions in the Presbyterian Church, 
long before the sex3aration caused by the late civil 
war. Yet all these public honors were voluntarily 
surrendered by this man of God, that, without fee 
or reward, he might become a missionary to the 
slaves in his native county. By this act of self-ab- 
negation, he endeared himself to the people of God 
throughout the land, and won a distinction to him- 
self beyond that of princes or titles to confer." 

Beginning with the thought that the meeting in 
the interests of Domestic Missions was but a con- 
tinuation of that held the previous evening in behalf 
of Foreign Missions, since the field was one and the 
work the same, he rapidly s'ietches the territory oc- 
cupied by the Confederate States, its physical fea- 
tm-es, productions and population. He then skil- 
fully introduces the subject of the negro; his pe- 
culiar relation to the whites, relative numbers of the 
two races, and sketches the history of his introduc- 
tion into the United States. Noting the fact with 
approval that the Confederate Congress had passed 



198 Plantation Life 

an act prohibiting the slave-trade, and that for a long 
period the increase of the negro had not been by 
importation, but by birth, he remarks that " the na- 
tural increase of the negi'oes under a genial climate 
and mild treatment has kept pace with that of the 
whites, but not exceeded it, and that increase will con- 
tinue, although for good reasons (white emigration?) 
the white population will make the disparity of num- 
bers between the two classes greater and greater at 
every census." He then, in feeling and eloquent 
language, emphasizes the value of the slave as a fel- 
low immortal, dwells upon his close relation to thai 
master, his importance to society as a producer of 
values, and draws from all these considerations pow- 
erful arguments for his evangehzation. He then, 
with all his moving oratory, urges to their help a 
church which had, as he affirmed, only "partially 
fulfilled " her duty to this people, in the providence 
of God, now thrown exclusively upon the southern 
people for the gospel, and closes with practical sug- 
gestions as to the best methods of performing this 
her acknowledged duty. 

No analysis can do justice to the address, and wo 
shall append to our imperfect summary, as samples 
of its moving oratory, a few extracts. 



Before Emancipation. 199 

Vajing the race a deserved compliment for its 
good behavior throughout its history in this country, 
he asks : 

" Whence came this people ? Originally from the 
la:aals and jungles, the cities and villages, of the tor- 
rid regions of Africa, wonderfully adapted by con- 
stitution and complexion to live and thrive in similar 
latitudes in all the world. They are inhabiters of 
one common earth with us ; they are one of the va- 
rieties of our race — a variety produced by the po^^er 
and in the inscrutable wisdom of God; but when, 
and how, and where, lies back of all the traditions 
and records of men. These sons of Ham are black 
in the first hieroglyphics ; they are black in the first 
pages of histoiy, and continue black. They share 
our physical natui'e, and are bone of our bone and 
flesh of our flesh; they share our intellectual and 
spiritual nature ; each body of them covers an im- 
mortal soul God our Father loves, for whom Chnst 
our Saviour died, and unto whom everlasting happi- 
ness or misery shall be meted in the final day. They 
are not the cattle upon a thousand hills, nor the 
fowls upon the mountains, brute beasts, goods and 
chattels, to be taken, worn out and destroyed in our 



200 Plantation Life 

use ; but they are men, created in the image of God, 
to be acknowledged and cared for spiritually by us, 
as we acknowledge and care for the other varieties of 
the race, our own Caucasian or the Indian, or the 
Mongol. Shall we reach the Bread of Life over their 
heads to far-distant nations, and leave them to die 
eternal deaths before our eyes ? 

" What is their social connection with us f They 
are not foreigners, but our nearest neighbors ; they 
are not hired servants, but servants belonging to us 
in law and gospel; born in our house and bought 
with our money; not people whom we seldom see 
and whom we seldom hear, but people who are never 
out of the sight of our eyes and hearing of our ears. 
They are our constant and inseparable associates ; 
whither we go they go ;. where we dwell they dwell; 
where we die and are buried, there they die and are 
buried ; and, more than all our God is their God. 
What parts men most closely connected in this life 
from each other, that can only part us from them, 
namely, crime, debt, or death. Indeed, they are wdth 
us from the cradle to the grave. Many of us are 
nursed at their generous breasts, and all carried in 
their arms. They help to make us walk, they help 



Before Emancipation. 201 

to make us talk, they help to teach us to distinguish 
the first things we see and the first things we hear. 
Thej mingle in all our infantile and boyish sports. 
They are in oui' chambers and in our parlors, and 
serve us at every calL "We say to this man ' Go,' and 
he goeth; and to another 'Come,' and he cometh; 
and to another 'Do this,' and he doeth it; they are 
with us in the house and in the field ; they are with 
us when we travel on the land and on the sea ; and 
when we are called to face dangers, or pestilence, or 
war, still are they with us ; they patiently nurse us 
and ours iu long nights and days of iUness ; our for- 
tunes are their fortunes; and our joys their joys; 
and our soitows are their sorrows ; and among the 
last forms that our failing eyes do see, and among 
the last sounds oui' ears do hear, are theii' forms and 
their weepings, mingled with those of out' dearest 
ones, as they bend over us in our last sti-uggles, dy- 
ing, passing away into the vaUey of the shadows of 
death ! My brethren, are these people nothing to 
us? Have we no gi-atitude, no friendship, no kind 
feelings for all that they have done for us and for 
ours? Have we no heart to feel, no hand to help, 
no smiles to give, no tears to shed on their behalf? 



202 Plantation Life 

No wish in our inmost soul that they may know what 
we prize above all price, our precious Saviour, and 
go with us to glory, too 1 

'' What is their value as an integral part of our 
population^ to ourselves, to our country, and to the 
world itself? To ourselves, they are the source, in 
large measure, of our living, and comprise our 
wealth, in Scripture, our ' money/ Our boatmen 
are they on the waters : our mechanics and artisans 
to build our houses, to work in inany trades; our 
agriculturists to subdue our forests, to sow and 
cultivate and reap our lands ; without whom no team 
is started, no plow is run, no spade, nor hoe, nor 
axe, is di'iven ; they prepare our food, and wait upon 
our tables and our persons, and keep the house, and 
watch for the master's coming. They labor for us 
in summer's sun and in winter's cold; to the fruit of 
their labor we owe our education, our food and cloth- 
ing, and our dwellings, and a thousand comforts of 
life that crowd our hajDpy homes ; and through the 
fruit of their labors we are enabled to support the 
gospel and enjoy the priceless means of grace. 
Brethren, what could we do without this people? 
How Hve antl support our families? And have tbey 



Before Emancipation. 203 

no claims upon us? Are they nothing more than 
creatui-es of profit and pleasure? Are the advan- 
tages and blessings of that close connection between 
us in the household to be all on one side? Has our 
Master in heaven so ordained it ? I will reverse the 
question of the apostle to the Corinthians and put it 
in the mouth of your servants, and make them ask 
it of yoUj their masters : ' If we have sown unto you 
carnal things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your 
spiritual things?'" 

This is what he beautifully says to pastors, in 
urging them not to forget this part of their charge : 

" Give notice to the master on what evening you 
will be with him, and that you will preach or lecture 
for his family and household. Right gladly will he 
welcome you; the family and plantation will bj all 
astir — ' our minister is coming to preach to us this 
evening.' Tea is over, the time for the meeting ia 
at hand. The little children beg to sit up to meet- 
ing; one servant takes the books and lights, another 
the chairs and stand. Everything is nicely arranged, 
and you are directly in presence of bright faces, and 
your psalm is sung with spirit and power, your prayer 
and your sermon fall on many attentive ears, and the 



204 Plantation Life 

hearty thanks of your humble parishioners fill you 
with gladness. At the close, you will speak an en- 
couraging word to the members of the church, and 
shake hands with the aged, and perhaps step in to 
see some sick and afflicted one. You will also en- 
quire how well the children and youth attend the 
plantation Sunday-school; and if you do not impart 
joy to the household, and go away a happier Chris- 
tian and a more blest minister, we shall bid farewell 
to years of experience and observation in this field 
of labor." 

Insisting on a high order of qualification in the mis- 
sionary to the blacks, and thorough preparation for 
his pulpit labors, he says this of his pastoral duties : 

"And as a good shepherd he will follow them 
into the highways and hedges, into their own 
plantations and into their o'wn sick chambers, 
and speak unto and pray with them. He will per- 
form their marriage ceremonies and attend their fu- 
nerals, and follow them to their graves, and go in 
and out before them, with the Bible in his hands, in 
the fear of the Lord. He will become a star in the 
right hand of the Saviour before them, and they will 
rejoice in his light, aud learn to sing his hymns, and 



Before Emancipation. 205 

quote his precepts, and authority, and argue by his 
knowledge, and take him to be their friend, and seek 
his instruction in times of difficulty, and his comfort 
in their times of sorrow, and bring their families to 
-him for instruction and for his blessing ; and when 
they die, they will wish him to preach their funeral 
sermon. He will be happy with the people, and they 
will be happy with him; as much so as weak and 
sinful and partially sanctified ministers and people 
can be in this world. Whenever he meets them he 
speaks kind words, and receives kind words in re- 
turn. He is not ar^hamed of them, and they are 
glad in him; and when he rides along the road, and 
they are at work in the field, he flings over the fence 
amongst them, a cheerful 'Good morning! good 
morning to you all !' In a moment, every eye is up, 
and they catch his voice and person, and retiu'n his 
salutation with a hearty good will, with rapid inqui- 
ries after his welfare, and their loud and happy con- 
versation dies on his ear as he leaves them behind !" 
A more tender and poetic and yet eloquent para- 
graph it would be hard to find in any address, than 
that which I now close an account of an address, 
which stirred my soul to its depths, as it did others/ 



206 Plantation Life 

and sent me (a lover of ttie race from childhood, and 
since manhood a worker among them) to my home 
and charge, determined (the best proof of the speak- 
er's power) to work for their salvation as I had never 
done before. 

Imagine the effect of hearing this man of God, 
manifestly drawing near to the grave, unable even to 
stand, give this as his experience and parting word 
to his ministerial brethren, whose face they were to 
see in our highest court no more ! 

"Yes, my brethren, there is a blessing in the work ! 
How often, returning home after preaching on the 
Sabbath day, through crowds of worshippers, some- 
times singing as they went down to their homes 
again, or, returning from plantation meetings, held in 
humble abodes, late in the starlight night, or in the 
soft moonhght silvering over the forest on the road- 
side, wet with heavy dews, with scarcely a sound to 
break the silence, alone, but not lonely; how often 
has there flowed up in the soul a deep, peaceful joy? 
that God enabled me to preach the gospel to the 
t)oor? 

" And now that this earthly tabernacle trembles to 
its fall, and these failing limbs can no more bear me 



Before Emancipation 207 

about, nor this tongue, as it was wont, preach the glad 
tidings of salvation, I look back, and -varied recollec- 
tions crowd my mind, and my eyes grow dim with 
tears, I pray for gratitude for innumerable mercies 
^ast, for forgiveness for the chief of sinners, and for 
the most unfaithful of ministers, for meek submis- 
sion for the present, and for an assm-ed hope in a 
precious Saviour for the future. Oh, my brethren! 
work while the day lasts, ' for the night cometh when 
no man can work;' for the shadows of that night, 
even while the day lasts, may fall upon you and stop 
you in yom' way, ere its deep darkness shut you 
around in the cold grave, no more to be removed 
until the Son of Man shall come in his glory, to the 
judgment of the great day." 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

CONDUCT OF THE NEGRO DURING THE WAR. 

THE celebrated Emancipation Proclamation was 
clearty a war measure, whose sole purpose was 
the crippling of the enemy. It went into operation 
imperfectly during the war within the Federal lines,, 
and became effectual only at its close. Indeed, it is 
said that some Indian slaveholders in the Ever- 
glades of Florida have only recently found out that 
their negroes are free The conduct, therefore, of 
the negro before emancipation includes his conduct 
'during the war. 

The facts which I am about to relate are noto- 
rious, and have passed into history, but it will be 
useful to recall them. What I shall relate is the 
result largely of my own observation, and of what I 
have learned from the lips of actors in the scenes 
described. 

It will be convenient to divide the subject ; and I 
208 



Plantation Life. 209 

"will first speak of the conduct of the negro in vast 
regions of the South never invaded bv a Federal 
army 

Here let me premise that there was no discern- 
ible difference in the conduct of the negroes as the 
war progressed and the area of the doomed Con- 
federacy constantly narrowed, and the news perco- 
1 ted the country that the object of the approach- 
ing armies was their liberation. Whether it was 
due to the habits of industry and subordination 
engendered by two centuries of American slavery^ 
or to the intrinsic inoffensiveness of the race, it is 
certain that their conduct under most tiying cir- 
cumstances was above all praise, and constitutes a 
debt which Southerners should be neither reluctant 
to acknowledge nor slow to pay. 

As a rule, there was no insubordination among 
them, although the master's eye and hand were 
absent, much less threat of, or execution of vio- 
lence. With the entire arms-bearing male popula- 
tion — "conscription robbing (as it was said) the 
cradle and the grave "—withdrawn, they, under 
their negro drivers and occasional overseers, and 
mainly under the direction of mistresses, advised 



210 Plantation Lite 

by letter from time to time by masters at tlie front, 
tilled the fields, harvested and sold the crops, and 
protected the defenceless families of men fighting 
against their freedom! Absolutely, women and 
children felt and were safer then than they are 
now in some parts of the South. 

Let me now refer to their conduct within the 
Federal Hnes. Some bad slaves, and a few, mostly 
young and foohsh negroes, fascinated by the large 
promises of freedom which, in their ignorance, they 
mistook for exemption from work and govern- 
mental support, followed in the wake of the hberat- 
ing armies, until their privations forced them home 
again. The sufferings of these poor creatures made 
the name given to them by the Federals, " contra- 
bands," a synonymn of wretchedness. 

The great mass of them within the changing 
army lines remained quietly in their homes, and 
took care, with a beautiful fidelity, of the families 
of their owners. In not a few instances, their treat- 
ment by the Federals was not calculated to awaken 
any ardent admiration of their dehverers. In Lib- 
erty county, for example, they robbed servant and 
master with perfect impartiality, not only carrying 
14 



Before Emancipation. 211 

off tlie clothing of the absent master and present 
servant, but exchanging theii' infested undercloth- 
ing for that of the negro 'women ! 

The conduct of the negro in Liberty county, Ga., 
Huring what is still called "Sherman's Raid," is 
doubtless a fair specimen of their conduct elsewhere 
under similar circumstances. As such I give now 
the testimony of two eye witnesses; and first quote 
from a brief journal of the experience of the only 
daughter, now deceased, of Eev. Charles Colcock 
Jones, D. D., on her father's plantation home, " Mon- 
tevideo," Liberty count}, Ga. 

When Sherman, in his unopposed march from 
Atlanta to the sea, struck the fortifications around 
Savannah, which occasioned only a short halt, his 
great army flattened out all over the adjoining 
country and Hved upon its rich resources. Our 
guard said they had a perfect picnic in our county. 
For a month or more, three lone females and five 
Httle children were exposed to the constant visits 
of foraging parties of his troops. I quote from the 
journal written upon one of my old blank books, in 
part occupied with memoranda of texts to bo fash- 
ioned into sermons : 



212 Plantation Life 

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1861, — Mother rode to Arcadia 
this morning, thinking the Yankees were no nearer- 
than Way's Station (in an adjoining comity), and 
lingered about the place until late in the afternoon, 
when she started to return to "Montevideo," and 
was quietly knitting in the carriage fearing no evil: 
(Tack was driving. Just opposite the Girardeau 
place, a Yankee sprang from the woods and brought 
his carbine to bear upon Jack, ordering him to 
halt, then lowered it so that he could bring it to 
bear either upon the carriage or Jack, and de- 
manded of mother what she had in the carriage. 
She replied: "Nothing but my family effects." 
"What have you in that box behind your carriage? " 
"My servant s clothing " "Where are you going? " 
" To my home." " Where is your home ? " " Nearer 
the coast." "How far is the coast?" "About ten 
miles. I am a defenceless woman, a widow; have 
3'ou done with me, sir. Drive on. Jack." Bringing 
his gun to bear on Jack, he called out: "Halt!" 
He then asked, "Have you seen any rebels? " "We 
have a Post at No. 3." He then said: "I would not 
like to disturb a ladj^ and if you take my advice 
you will turn immediately back, for the men are 



Before Emancipation. 213 

just ahead, and they -will take your horses and search 
your carriage." Mother replied: "I thank you for 
that," and ordered Jack to turn. Jack saw a num- 
ber of men ahead, and mother would doubtless have 
been in their midst had she proceeded. (Pursuing, 
under great difficulties, a circuitous route, for the 
Confederates had taken up the bridges, and with a 
faithful negro acting as her voluntary scout, she 
reached her home and anxious daughter at nine 
o'clock at night. The journal continues :) 

I was truly rejoiced to hear the sound of the cai'- 
riage wheeJs, for I had been several hours in the 
greatest suspense, not knowing how mother would 
hear of the presence of the enemy. (Learning, mean- 
while, of the presence of Federal soldiers in the neigh- 
borhood, she continues:) Fearing a raiding party 
might come up immediately, I had some trunks of 
clothing and other things carried into the woods, and 
the carts and horses taken away, and prepared to 
spend the night alone, as I had no idea mother could 

reach home. After ten o'clock Mr. M came in to 

see us, having come from No. 3, where a portion of 

Hood's command was stationed. Mr. M staid 

with us until two o'clock, and fearing to remain 



214 Plantation Life 

longer left, to join the soldiers at 4 J, Johnson's 

Station. He had exchanged his horse for C 's 

mule, as he was going on picket duty and would 
need a swifter animal. This distressed us very 
much, and I told him I feared he would be cap- 
tured. It was hard to part under this apprehen- 
sion, and he lingered with us as long as possible, 
and prayed with us just before leaving. 

Wednesday, Dec. 14. — Mother and I rose early, 
thankful no enemy had come near us dm'ing the 
night. We passed the day in great anxiety. Late 
in the afternoon, Charles (the servant man) came 
into the parlor, just from Walthourville, and burst 
into tears. I asked what was the matter. " Oh ! " 
he said, "very bad news. Massa is captured by 
the Yankees, and says I must tell you to keep a 
good heart." This was a dreadful blow to us and 

to the poor little children ; M especially realized 

it and cried all evening ! 

Thursday, Dec. 15. — About ten o'clock mother 
walked out upon the lawn, leaving me in the dining- 
room. In a few moments Elsey came running in to 
say the Yankees are coming, I went to the front 
door and saw three dismounting at the stable, where 



Before Emancipation. ' 215 

they found mother. I debated whether to go to her 
or remain in the house; the question ^vas soon set- 
tled, for in a moment a stalwart Kentucky Irishman 
stood before me, having come through the pantry 
door. I scarcely knew what to do. His salutation 
was: "Have you any whiskey in the house?" I 
replied: "None that I know of " "You ought to 
know," he said in a very rough voice. I repHed : 
" This is not my house, so I don't know what is in 
it." Said he: "I mean to search this house for 
arms; but I will not hurt you." He then com- 
menced shaking and pushing the sliding doors and 
calling for the key. Said I: "If you will turn the 
handle and slide the door you will find it open." 
The following interrogation took place: "What's 
in that box? " " Books." "What's in that room? " 
"You can search for yourself." "What's in that 
press?" "I do not know, because this is mother's 
house, and I have recently come here." "AMiat's 
in that box?" "Books and pictures." "Whafs 
that, and where is the key?" "My sewing-ma- 
chine; I'll get the key." He then opened the 
side door, and discovered the door leading into the 
old parlor." "I want to get into that room " " If 



216 Plantation Life 

you will come around I will get tlie key for you.'* 
"We passed through the parlor; he ran up the stairs 
and commenced searching my bed-room. " Where 
have 3^ou hid your arms?" "There are none in the 
house, 3^ou can search for yourself." He ordered 
me to get the keys to all my trunks and drawers. 
I did so, and he put his hand into everything, even 
a little trunk containing needle-work, boxes of hair, 
and other small things of this description. All this 
was under color of searching for arms and ammuni- 
tion ! He called loudly for all the ke^^s ; I told him 
my mother would soon be in the house and she 
would get the keys for him. While searching my 
drawers he turned to me and asked . " Where is 
your watch V I told him : " My husband has worn 
it, and he was captured the day before at Walthour- 
ville." Shaking his fist at me he said: -'Don't you 
lie to me; you have got a watch." I felt he could 
have struck me to the floor, but looking' steadily at 
him, I repHed: "I have a watch and chain, and my 
husband has them with him." "Well, were they 
taken when he was captured?" "I do not know, 
for I was not present." Just at that time I heard 
another coming up the stairsteps, and saw a young 



Before Emancipation. 217 

Tennessean going into mother's room, where he 
commenced a search. Mother came in soon after 
and got her keys, and there we w^ere following two 
ipen around the house, handing them the keys and 
seeing almost everything opened. The Tennessean 
found a box, and hearing something ratthug in it, 
he thought there must be coin within it, and would 
have broken it open, but Dick prevented him. Mo- 
ther got the key, and his longing eyes beheld a 
bunch of keys. In looking through the drawers to 
mother's surprise, Dick pulled out a sword which 
belonged to her brother, and had been in her jdos- 
session for thirty years, and she had forgotten it 
was there. Finding it to be so rusty that they 
could scarcely draw it from the scabbard, they con- 
cluded it would not kill many men in the war, and 
did not take it away. 

He turned to mother and said : '* Old ladj^ haven't 
you got some whiskey?" Mother said: "I don't 
know that I have." " Well," said he, "I don't know 
w^ho ought to know if you don't." (The ladies were 
afraid of the results of their getting Hquor.) Mo- 
ther asked him "if he would like to see his mother 
and wife treated in tliis way, her house searched and 



218 Plantation Life 

invaded?" " Oli I" said he, " none of us have -wives." 
Wliilst mother walked from the stable with one from 
Kentucky, he had a great deal to say about the 
South bringing on the war. Mother asked him, "if 
he would like to see his mother and sisters treated 
as they were treating us." " No !" said he, "T would 
not, and I never do enter houses, and shall not enter 
yours;" and he remained without, while the other 
two men searched. They took none of the horses 
or mules ; all being too old. 

A little before dinner we were again alarmed by 
the presence of five Yankees, four of them dressed 
as marines. One came into the house; a very mild 
sort of a man. We told him the house had ah'eady 
been searched. He asked "if the soldiers had torn 
up anything !" One of the marines came into the 
pantry and asked if they could get something to 
eat. Mother told them they were welcome to what 
she had prepared for her own dinner, and if they 
chose they could eat it where it was. So they went 
into the kitchen, and cursing the servants, ordered 
milk, potatoes, and other things. They called for 
knives, etc. Having no forks out but plated ones, 
mother sent them, but they ordered Milton to take 



Before Emancipation. 219 

them back, and tell his mistress to put them away in 
a safe place, as a parcel of d — d Yankees would soon 
be along, and they would take eTCiy one from her. 
We hoped they would not intrude upon the dwell- 
ing, but as soon as they finished, the four maiines 
came in, and one commenced a thorough search, 
calling for all the keys. He found difficulty in 
fitting the keys, and I told him that I would show 
them to him, if he would give me the bunch. 
He said he would give them to me when he 
was re«dy to leave the house. He went into the 
attic and instituted a thorough search. Taking a 
canister, containing some private papers belonging 
to my dear father, he tried to open it. Mother 
could not find the key immediately, and told him 
he had better break it; but she could assure him 
it contained nothing but papers. ''D — n it," he 
said, "if you don't get the key, I will break it; I 
don't care." In looking through the trunks, he 
found a silver goblet, but did not take it. One of 
the marines came in with a Secession rosette, which 
mother had given Jack to bum. ^\e were quite 
amused to see him come in with it pinned upon his 
coat. He had taken it from Jack. Tliib unu was 



220 Plantation Lite. 

quite inclined to argue about the origin of tlie 
struggle. After spending a long time in the search, 
they went off, taking one mule ; they left the car- 
riage horses, as mother told them they were seven- 
teen years old. In a short time we saw the mule at 
the gate ; they had turned it back. After they left, 
I found that my writing-desk had been most thor- 
oughly searched, and every^thing scattered, and all 
little articles, as jewelry, pencils, etc., abstracted. 
A gold pen was taken from my w^ork-box. Mother 
felt so anxious about Kate King (a neighbor and 
friend) that she sent Charles and Niger to urge her 
to come to us ; but thev did not reach South Hamp- 
ton, as they met a Yankee picket which turned 
them back, and took Charles with them to assist in 
carrying horses to Midway, promising to let him re- 
turn. 

Friday, Dec. 16. — Much to our rehef, Prophet 
came over this morning with a note fi'om Kate, to 
know if we thought she coidd come to us. Mother 
wrote her to come immediately, which she did in 
great fear and trembling, not knowing but that she 
would meet the enemy on the road. AVe all felt 
truly grateful she had been preserved by the way. 



Befoee Emancipa-hon. 221 

About four in tbe aftei-noon we heard the clash 
of arms ai:d noise of horsemen, and by the time 
mother and I could get doT^n stairs Ave saw forty or 
fifty men in the pantry, flying hither and thither, 
Tipping open the safe and crockeiy cupboards. 
Mother had some roasted ducks and chickens in 
the safe. These the men seized, tearing them to 
pieces like rav'^ous beasts. They were clamoring 
for whiskey and for the keys. One came to mother 
to know where her meal and flour were. She got 
the ])Siniry key, and they took out all that was there, 
and then threw the sacks across their horses. 
Mother remonstrated, but their only rejDly was, 
" We'll take it."' They flew around the house, tear- 
ing oj^en boxes. One of them broke open mother s 
work-box with an andiron. A party of them rifled 
the pantry, taking away knives, spoons, forks, tin 
plates, cups, cofl'ee-pot, and everything they wished. 
They broke open the old liquor case and carried off 
two of the gallon bottles, and they drank up all the 
blackberry v. ine and vinegar which mother had in 
the case. It was impossible to utter a word, for 
we were completely paralyzed by the fury of the 
mob. A number of them went into the attic, into 



222 Plantation Life. 

a little store-room mother had there, and carried 
off twelve bushels of meal "which mother had put 
there. Mother told them they were taking all that 
she had for herself, daughter, friend, and five little 
ones, but scarcely any regarded her voice, and those 
that did laughed and said they would leave a sack, 
but they only left some rice, which they did not 
want, and poured a little meal upon the floor. They 
called for men's shirts and men's clothes. We asked 
for their officer, hoping to make some appeal to him, 
but they said "they were all officers." We finally 
found one man who seemed to have a little show of 
authority, which was indicated by a whip which he 
carried. Mother made an appeal to him, and he 
came up and ordered the men out. They brought 
a wagon and took another fi'om the place to carry 
off their plunder. It is impossible to imagine the 
perfect stampede through the house, all yeUing, 
cursing, quarrehng, and going from one room to 
another in wild confusion. They were of Kilpat- 
rick's Cavahy ; and we look back upon their appear- 
ance in the house as some horrible nightmare ! (In 
narrating this scene afterwards, the writer of the 
diary said to me, " The atmosphere seemed blue with 



Eefoke Emancipation. 223 

oaths.") Before leaving, they ordered all the oxen 
to be gotten up early next morning. 

Saturday, Dec. 17. — About four o'clock we were 
roused by the sound of horses, and from that until 
sunrise squads of six and ten were constantly arriv- 
ing. We felt a dark time of trial was upon us, and 
we knew not what might befall us. Feehng our 
weakness and peril, we all w^ent to prayer, and con- 
tinued in prayer for a long time, imploring personal 
protection and that the enemy might not be per- 
mitted to come nigh our dwelling. AVe sat in dark- 
ness, waiting for the light of morning to reveal their 
purposes. In the gray twihght we saw one man 
pacing before the kitchen, and afterwards found 
that he had voluntarily undertaken to guard the 
house, as far as he could. In this we felt that our 
prayer had been answered. As soon as it was light, 
Kate looked out and discovered an officer near the 
house, which was a great rehef of our feelings. 
Mother went down and begged him that he would 
not allow the soldiers to enter the house, as it had 
ahready been three times searched. He said "it 
was contrary to orders for men to be found in 
houses, and the penalty was death; and, so far as 



224 Plantation Life 

his authority extended, no man should enter the 
house." He said they had come on a foraging ex- 
pedition and intended to take provisions, etc. Upon 
mother inviting him in to see some of the work of 
the previous evening, he came in and sat awhile in 
the parlor. The Yankees made the negroes bring 
up the oxen and carts, and took all the chickens, 
turkeys, etc., that they could find; they also took oif 
all the syrup from the smoke-house and some fresh 
pork. Mother saw everything stripped from the 
premises, withou, ^ ^^e power of uttering one word. 
Finally the.v,x^lled out the carriage, and took that 
to carry in it a load of chickens (!). Everything was 
taken that they possibly could. The soldier who 
was our voluntary guard was from Ohio, and when, 
mother thanked him and told she wished she could 
make him some return for his kindness, he said : "I 
could not receive am and only wish I were here to 
guard you always." They took oil Jack, Pulaski, 
June, Martin, little Pula^^it-^^iiid Ebenezer, also 
George, but said they m^^iit all return if they 
wished, as they onl}' wanted them to drive their 
carts as far as their wagon train. One said the car- 
riage should retm-n, and afterwards said mother 



Before Ejiancipation. 225 

must send for it if she wanted it. He knew very- 
well that this was impossible, as all the harness had 
been taken from the place. A little later mother 
w^alked to the smoke-house, and found an officer 
-taking her sugar, which had been put to drv; he 
seemed a Httle ashamed at having been caught, but 
did not retui'n the sugar. He was moimted upon 
Audley King's pet horse, and said as he rode off: 
"How the man who owns this horse will curse the 
Yankee who took him when he ecoes home and finds 
him gone!" He had Mr. King-. -Bervant mounted 
upon another of his horses, and no dur^^t knew he 
was near (in hiding) when he made the remark. 
Immediately we went to work, removing the salt 
and the remainder of the sugar into the house, and 
while we were doing so a Missouiian came up and 
advised us to get everything into the house as 
quickly as possible, and he V Juld protect us while 
doing so. He said he had enlisted to fight for the 
Constitution, but si. ■ -^ J -^n the war had been turned 
into another thing, and u.e did not approve this Aboli- 
tionism, for his wife's people all owned slaves. He 
told us, what afterward proved false, that ten thou- 
infantry would soon pass through lliceboro, on their 
15 



226 Plantation Life 

ivay to Thomasville. Soon after tliis some twenty 
rode up, and caught me having a barrel rolled 
toward the house, but they were very gentlemanly, 
and only a few of them dismounted. They said 
"the war would soon be over, as they would have 
Savannah in a few days." I told them " Savannah 
was not the Confederacy." They repHed: "We 
admire your spunk." They inquired for all the 
large plantations. All the poultry that could be 
found was taken off. Squads came all day until 
dark. The ox-wagons were taken to Carlarotta to 
be filled with corn. 

Sabbath, Dec. 18. — We passed this day with many 
-fears, but no Yankees came to the lot, although many 
went to Carlarotta (another settlement on the same 
plantation), and were engaged in caiTying off tho 
corn, the key of the corn-house having been taken 
from Cato (the driver) the day before. A day com- 
paratively free from interruption was veiy grateful 
to us, although the constant state of apprehension 
in which we were, was veiy distressing. In the 
afternoon, while engaged in reading and seeking 
protection from our Heavenly Father, Capt. Winn's 
Isaiah came, bringing a note from Mr. M to 



Before Emancipation. 227 

me, and from Mr. John Stevens to mother, sending- 
my watch. This was the first intelligence from 

Mr. M . How welcome to us all, although the 

note brought no hope of his release, as the charge 
against him was taking up arms against the United 
States. Capt. Winn had been captured, but re- 
leased. We were all in such distress that mother 
wrote Mr. Stevens, begging him to come to us. We 
felt so utterly alone, that it would be a comfort to 
have him with us. 

Monday, Dec. 19. — Squads of Yankees came all 
day, so that the servants scarcely had a moment to 
do anything for us out of the house; the women 
finding it entirely unsafe for them to be out at all. 
The few stray chickens and some sheep were killed. 
These men were so outrageous at the negro houses, 
that the negro men were obliged to stay at their 
houses for the protection of their wives, and in 
some instance rescued them from the hands of 
these infamous creatures. 

Tuesday, Dec. 20. — A squad of Yankees came 
after breakfast, rode into the pasture, drove ^^\) 
some oxen, and went into the woods and brought 
out mother's horse wagon, to which they attached 



228 Plantation Life 

the oxen. Needing a chain for the purpose, they 
went to the well and took the chain from the 
buckets. Mother sent out to . 

Here the journal ends. I add, that when the 
first troops searched the house, the ladies, offering 
to help them in their examination for cannon and 
muskets in their trunks (!), adroitly flung the linen 
taken from those first examined over trunks contain- 
ing all their silver; and leaving everything just as 
the first invaders of the home had deranged it, sub- 
sequent marauders were misled; and so woman's 
vrit got the better of Yankee shrewdness. Through- 
out all this long and trying experience, in which 
three unprotected females and five young children 
were exposed to the rudeness of Sherman's soldiers, 
the servants, one and all, old and young, were per- 
fectly respectful and faithful; indeed, our families, 
ruthlessly robbed of all provisions by United States 
soldiers, would, for all they cared, have suffered 
from hunger, had it not been that their slaves pro- 
vided them with food. 

The last entry in the journal was December 20th. 
January 4th, the writer of the journal (her husband 
a prisoner in Savannah, with good prospect of being 



Befoee Emancipation. 229 

•sent for the war to a Northern prison), r.nd with fifty 
Yankee soldiers clamoring to enter the house, who 
only were kept out by the pluck of a lone woman, a 
friend, gave birth to a daughter. The invaders 
would not be said nay, until this lady said: "You 
compel me to be plain, and to say that a child is 
being this moment born in the house ; " when they 
raised a general yell, stuck sjDurs to their horses, 
and disappeared down the avenue ! 

In response to my request to know how the ne- 
groes behaved in Liberty county during the raid, 
the wife of one of our best known Georgia pastors 
then in charge of the old Midway ch^^rch, Liberty 
county, gives this as her experience : 

" Tell Cousin K that the negro population 

in Liberty county during the war were restrained 
b}' their rehgious training and teaching; and we 
owe dear Uncle Charlie (Rev. Dr. C. C. Jones) a 
debt of gratitude. Defenceless women and chil- 
dren, and not the first act of violence "or depreda- 
tion ! On the contraiy, constant acts of kindness ! 
Our people fed us during the raid, and served us 
faithfully, until we left the county months after- 
wards to come up here, and they were all polite and 



230 Plantation Lite 

respectful. I told our people, while they were now 
free to the end of the chapter, I was free, and no 
longer obhged to take care of them, and they must 
now take care of me and of themselves, and not to 
foUow the army, but to stay on their own planta- 
tions and provide for themselves ; that they could see 
the army could not take care of their own soldiers 
without tearing down our corn -houses ; and as Sher- 
man's army encamped on our place (Lambert planta- 
tion), and killed the cattle, sheep, geese, levelled the 
fences and burnt the cotton-house, and tore down 
the corn-houses to get at the corn before their eyes, 
they saw the necessity of caring for themselves. 
Syphax came and told us of the destruction of the 
things at Arcadia (furniture and a fine piano) ; and 
then these reports from Lambert plantation re- 
minded me of the adverse messengers Job received 
in ancient times. There were so many false reports 
of citizens being killed and wounded, and some true, 
that the bewilderment of a war is a terrible thing. 
The searching of the houses for fire-arms by the 
soldiers was terrible. But a better appointed army 
than the Yankee army the sun never saw, or one 
more obedient to orders. At a signal the house 



Before Emancipation. 231 

would be swarming with them, and at a signal the y 

would be out of it as quickly. Mr. B says Gen. 

Sherman never was in Liberty county himself. The 
man who came with twelve others was so convinced 
by my words of Mr. B 's innocence, that he re- 
leased him immediately, charging him to remain in 

the house, but Mr. B , saying he was safe in the 

discharge of his duty, visited his people as usual, 
going to Montevideo to see dear aunt Mary Jones 
and all the family. The behavior of the whole col- 
ored population was wonderful in the extreme. I 
doubt if we white people had been placed in the 
same trjdng position, we would have behaved as 
well. The soldiers would teU them: 'Now if you 
want anything out of that house, go in and take it,* 
but they did not take the first thing, as far as I 
know; indeed, they had all they needed, and they 
had to watch their own clothes and things. Au- 
gustus, our carriage di'iver, told me they had taken 

his best coat and his watch; and all of Mr. B 's 

they could get hold of, they carried oflf. And they 
seemed to need fresh garments sadly. Matilda, 
servant, swept a pair of discarded pants from the 
piazza, which she said she was afraid to touch 1 



232 Plantation Life. 

.... I saw a Yankee soldier take Mr. B 's 

watch, after he returned to us from the other side 
of the Alatamaha. The Yankees never came into 
our houses at night (they were mortally afraid of 
bushwhackers), which was a blessing." 

I beheve I could not have presented more vivid 
or correct illustrations of the noble conduct of the 
negro during the war, than that furnished in the 
above journal and letter of two eye-witnesses, the 
wives of well-known living Presbyterian ministers. 



CHAP TEE XXIY. 

GONGL USION. 

I HAVE now, through the blessing of God, fin- 
ished the self-appointed and not unpleasing task 
assumed many months since. The reader and the 
writer have traveled, let us hope not without mutual 
pleasure and profit, over a wide territory. Begin- 
ning with the author's reasons for writing, and with 
a sketch of the topics as they lay in his mind, to 
which he has in the main adhered, he has given 
some account of his connection with slavery and 
slaves, painted from memory the old plantation, 
recalled the occupation and sports which made it a 
paradise to children, described the houses, food, 
clothing, physicking and work of the negro, and 
his maniage and family relations. 

He has next presented the photogi-aph of a curious 
character ; and, with the aid of his own memory and 
the contributions of two Southern authors, given 
233 



234 Plantation Life 

specimens of the only literature peculiar to the 
negro slave. 

With a loving and loyal hand he has sketched the 
history of a remarkable church, that of his fathers, 
and drawn from memory "Sacrament Sunday" in 
the same, in which master and slave commemor- 
ated together the Saviour's dying love. Then he has 
attempted to sketch in outline the hfe of one who 
more than any man deserves to be known as "the 
Apostle to the negro slave." Then followed a rapid 
outhne of his labors among and for them, a recital 
of anecdotes j)reserved b}^ him, illustrative of negTo 
character and religious experience. Then was given 
rapid sketches of work done in the same field by 
other ministers, individuals, churches and commu- 
nities, including the history of a remarkable enter- 
prise in a Southern city, and the personal and ten- 
der reminiscences of another beloved missionary to 
the blacks. The series has been fittingly closed 
with a sketch from memoiy of the first General 
Assembly, and a report of its work for the salvation 
of the slave, and the testimony of eye-witnesses to 
the noble conduct of the negro during the war. 

Those who, \\dthout prepossession or prejudice, 



Before Emancipation. 235 

have read these letters, must be convinced, if they 
needed any proof, that African slavery in America 
was not what some in their ignorance, envy or malice 
have poiirayed it. That, with its confessed evila 
and occasional abuses, it had many redeeming quali- 
ties. No one who credits the statements of the com- 
petent and truthful eye-witnesses given, will for a 
moment doubt that in innumerable instances the 
bond which bound master and slave had almost the 
kindness, tenderness and strength of the ties which 
connect dear kindred. It must also be perfectly clear 
that, to a large extent. Southern Christians appre- 
ciated their responsibiHty, and endeavored to dis- 
charge it toward the souls of a people, in the provi- 
dence of God, with no agency of theirs, committed 
to their care; that the slaves were not, as a general 
rule, regarded as mere chattels, but as immortal 
beings, for whose religious instruction they (the 
masters) would be held accountable by theu' com- 
mon Master in heaven. 

No one that I have met since the war regrets 
their emancipation ; no Christian would again freely 
assume the responsibility, felt to be so heavy by not 
a few in the olden time. We have no harsh or 



236 Plantation Lite 

angry feelings against those who, ^vithout compen- 
sation, annihilated the larger part of the former 
wealth of the South, and reduced our people tem- 
porarily almost to beggary. Surely we entertain 
no feelings of resentment toward those who, with- 
out being consulted, were suddenly and without 
any preparation invested with the responsibiUty 
and (in their intellectual condition) dangerous privi- 
lege of citizenship. Our own beloved church, the 
Southern Presbyterian, has shown every disposition 
to help them 'religiously since the war, as far as 
they would accept our aid. We feel that their 
great need as citizens and as immortal beings, is 
a pious and educated ministry. In accordance witk 
this view, there has been established our seminary, 
the Tuskaloosa Colored Institute in Alabama. Open 
to students of all denominations, it is our institute 
by which we hope to raise up, for their future sepa- 
rate church, an efficient Presbyterian ministiy. The 
work already done by this seminai-y tells for itself, 
and it is highly creditable to the ability of its pro- 
fessors. Its graduates are, in their humility, mod- 
esty, elocution and ability, an honor to their Alma 
Mater. One of the graduates, with a white asso- 



Before Emancipation. 237 

ciate, is now in Africa, a missionary of the South- 
ern Presbyterian Church. 

One important end of these letters will have been 
accomplished if they shall have fostered the kindly 
feeling already binding the two races together, if 
they have awakened on our part a deeper and more 
helpful sympathy with them in their infant enter- 
prise, the establishment of an African Presbyterian 
church m the South, and if they shall have drawn 
to the aid of oui' Tuskaloosa Institute the generous 
pecuniary support of Christians North and South. 

And now I close my letters as the Psalmist did 
his psalms, and with his doxology : " Blessed be 
the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth 
wonderful things, and blessed be his glorious name 
forever, and let the whole earth bo filled \N-ith his 
glory. Amen and Amen. " 



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